It has been an amazing year of growth for LA Youth Supportive Services. There have been so many positive changes over the last year that it's difficult to think about where to begin.
Perhaps the biggest change of all has been establishing a new location for our office. Previously, at our office on Vine street, when Jason returned late at night, he would pull his van up to within a couple feet of the front door so that he could quickly unload and dash inside the office. Caution was always warranted there late at night, due to its being located in a potentially dangerous gang neighborhood.
At the new location on Santa Monica Boulevard, this is no longer a concern. This location, in the heart of West Hollywood, provides easy access to the youth of the city as well as a safe haven for volunteers and staff. Additionally, the new office provides four-times the space of the previous location. This extra space has enabled LAYSS to expand it's services to the youth of the Los Angeles area.
Thanks to the extra space, as well as donations of computers from various sources, LAYSS has been able to establish a computer training center. By training youth in literacy, typing, word processing, and resume writing skills, LAYSS is helping youth move into the workforce by providing them with marketable job skills.
Another major change this year is the addition of a new van. For years, Jason performed his Counseling on Demand from an old, unreliable van. The new van provides a more comfortable environment for outreach and counseling. The new van also provides additional space for transporting materials and food.
Our successes in the counseling area are astounding for the small size of our staff. In our three years of existence we have been instrumental in assisting over 95 youths to leave the streets of LA and on to safer, more positive and successful lives. Our savings program has allowed 39 of our clients to save $19,700 which enabled many of them to finally rent apartments of their own. This year, we paid for 13 clients to return by bus to their out-of-state families. We also referred 10 youth to residential drug treatment programs, and introduced over three times as many to living drug, and alcohol, free through 12-step programs like Alcohol Anonymous.
Finally, this year saw the institution of salaries for staff members. For the first time, LAYSS has been able to offer a salary to those individuals working in the office performing the much needed administrative tasks required to keep the organization operating. Not to mention, Jason now has a salary - enabling him to continue his efforts in bringing about change in the lives of Los Angeles’s youth.
Indeed, this had been a year of many changes. We have grown and are able to provide more services to youth in need. We look forward to the coming year and the positive changes and growth opportunties that await us.
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There is so much I would like to share with you, but I’m afraid that this space is going to be filled before I even get started. I’ve been repeatedly asked, "What keeps you going? Working lots of 16 hour days, sometimes weeks with no full day off?" I’ve asked myself that same question, especially during the first 29 months before we could afford a salary for me. The answer I keep coming up with is the deep satisfaction of watching kids, that everyone else has given up on, become successes. It’s not even getting the "thank you for your assistance", which, because of the way we do counseling, don’t come that often. Because ourCounseling on Demand techniques allow even intensive counseling to occur under the guise of a casual conversation, many of our clients have spent years with us and have never labeled the relationship as a counseling one. If we have done our job well, they will never be aware of just how instrumental we were in their success. When that happens, they can totally own their successes. I get many more comments such as, "thank you for being my friend" than "thank you for rescuing me," which is the way I like it. Our motto is "Assisting youth to help themselves." We purposely chose "assisting" rather than "helping" because one can not be helped unless he or she is helpless and our kids might be a bit misguided but never helpless.
One night, a couple of months ago, while I was counseling out on the street, Tomás, a kid that I had not seen in at least two years, walked up to my van. Tomás and I had walked many miles (and years) together. We had hundreds of conversations on the street, sometimes just a "hi" and "goodbye," at other times, all nighters. I visited him in Juvenile Hall, assisted him to get into a residential drug rehab facility, took him to 12-Step meetings like Narcotics Anonymous, and once took him to the emergency room with 105º temperature. I lost count of the number of times I assisted him to get back into school. He finally stayed there after he had saved enough in our savings program to pay for the rent on an apartment of his own, which got him off the street permanently. With a lot of hard work, he earned his high school diploma. After graduation, the part time job he had maintained throughout his schooling turned into a very good full time one. After a couple of check-in calls to tell me about the job and his new, wonderful relationship, he stopped calling. I hadn’t heard from him until he walked up to the van that night.
Tomás filled me in on the last couple of years. He had moved back to his home town where he enrolled in a vocational school to become a truck driver. Upon graduation, he took a job as a long-haul driver. He had two missions that night, one was to say hi and fill me in on his life and the other was to give me a ride in his new tractor/trailer rig! He had earned enough money doing cross-country hauling to make the down payment on the $80,000 package! As I climbed up into the cab, I couldn’t have been prouder or more satisfied. That’s what keeps me going!
Return to "In This Issue"The Youth Rescue Fund was created by the Board of Directors of LA Youth Supportive Services, Inc. (LAYSS) as the focal point for its fund raising efforts. The Board felt, after careful reflection, that the Youth Rescue Fund name more accurately represents the current scope of the organization’s mission.
LAYSS was formed in April of 1995 to provide for the well being of high risk youth in Los Angeles. With very few resources, LAYSS has accomplished a record of success that exceeds most agencies many times its size. We have moved many kids off the streets and on to more successful lives and have assisted even more to stay at home, in school and in jobs.
The reason for this success is Counseling on Demand(COD), a unique counseling method developed and implemented by LAYSS. COD entails having masters-level mental health professionals do their own outreach in areas where kids gather. After establishing rapport and gaining their trust, the counselors are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, either in person or by phone, to respond to the counseling and social services needs of their young clients. The COD counseling approach has three parts:
The Board of Directors has recognized that the widespread use of Counseling On Demand would greatly increase the effectiveness of youth work everywhere. They, therefore, expanded the organization’s mission from the purely local counseling effort to one that recognizes the need for teaching these techniques to other mental health professionals and agencies and to assist agencies to start their own Counseling On Demand programs.
The funding priorities of The Youth Rescue Fund are, first, to ensure that the LAYSS counseling program in Los Angeles is fully funded so that it can effectively minister to the needs of all its clients LAYSS will thus serve as a model of what can be accomplished using the COD approach, and as an on-the-job training site for the professional training program. Second, to fund its on-going training program that teaches professionals and agencies the COD approach and allows them to get first hand experience by observing and working with the Hollywood program staff. Third, as funds become available, to assist other agencies that provide services to our clients or who want to start their own Counseling On Demand programs.
Ambitious? Maybe. With your assistance, though, we think it’s reachable!
Return to "In This Issue"Dear Susan and Jason,
How's it going? Still out there? Well, I hope so. This letter is long overdew. I'm writing to thank you. To give you thanks for being in my life.
The time I did in LA for my regretfull drug abuse and hustling was my lowest. You and the LAYSS van gave me shelter and security for a couple of hours. That was enough to help me the rest of the night to deal with my problems. Your services was something someone like me looked forward too. When the streets were too unbearable, you where there to help me reflect on the things that I was doing and on my life. Needing someone to talk to, you where there, understanding and listening without passing judgement on my stupidity. Thank you for listening.
I'm doing good. I'm working. I'm a security officer with an international company. I have my own apartment and my own things. I've been clean, off drugs, for a year and going to NA meetings. I live in a small town in Texas. Everything is going very well. Thank you.
I hope you and LAYSS continues. I believe it's important. There are other Tonys out there on the streets wanting to step out of the gutter and become something of worth to themselves.
Very Grateful,
Tony
Return to "In This Issue"As you have been reading in this newsletter, L.A. Youth Supportive Services has been growing this year: a staff with salaries, the new office, the computer training classroom, and a new van. We would not have even made it to the point where these miracles could happen, if it were not for the generosity of some very special people and organizations. We would like to acknowledge them now.
Some of our more than generous friends who have also contributed over $1000, include: our first guardian angel, Mr. Gene LaPietre who, for a year, matched all are our donations thereby ensuring our survival, Neal Sideman, Les Blau, Julia Wilks, Fr. Eugene S.J. Herbet, Max Stolz, Jr., Marc Jacoby, Bobbi and Charles Wittman, Rose Wittman, and Board Members, Bob Cohen, Mary Withers and Bill Mangan, and an anonymous donor.
We have received grants from The John Aaro Community Foundation, the Conrad Hilton Foundation, and the Wells Fargo Foundation.
Eugene, Sam, George, and Luis, of The O.N.N.E. Corp., have been directly responsible for much of this year's growth. They conduct and manage our vehicle donation program. They have demonstrated, time and again, that they are committed to see us survive and to grow, even when that meant adding some of their own money when the vehicle donations income did not quite meet our expenses.
Ms. Terry Jacoby, who donates her and her staff’s services at Terry l. Jacoby Financial Management, Inc. so that we can have audited accounting and bookkeeping. Mr. Bruce Senesec of Capitol Drugs and Mr. Bobby Higorani of Sav-on Drugs in West Hollywood for their continuing support through in-store donation collection at their check-out counters.
Our volunteers: Dave James, our computer software guru and newsletter publisher; Clint Rodenfels, the volunteer coordinator; Lisa Lovchik and NickieOntiverous, who have been resurrecting and maintaining computers donated to our computer school; Scott Bidstrup, who originally set up our web site; and Gregg Legutki, Mary Withers, and Gail Blamires, who set up the computer school and teach in it. Special thanks to Paul Stephan for editing this newsletter.
Last, but absolutely not least, thank you, thank you, thank you to the over 2500 people who donated their time, their money and, for the vehicle donation program, their vehicles. Our successes are your successes.
Return to "In This Issue"Susan Barney's involvement with LA Youth Supportive Services was sparked through a serendipitous mistake by the telephone information operator. A couple years back, was looking for some practical experience to augment her graduate school Ph.D. studies. She wanted to learn new approaches for reaching out to troubled youth. She had heard about another organization whose first three words in their name started with "Los Angeles Youth" and decided to investigate volunteer opportunities with that organization.
Susan called the information operator and asked for their phone number. She dialed the phone number she received and asked the person who answered about volunteer opportunities. That person informed Susan about a number of different ways to become involved in assisting youth in the Hollywood area. Gradually, Susan began to realize that the information she was receiving didn't seem to apply to the agency she had intended to call. The operator had given Susan LAYSS’s phone number, and she was, in fact, speaking with Jason Wittman.
Susan liked what she heard from Jason and decided to get involved. She quickly found herself working closely with Jason, and the two would counsel as many as 50 adolescents a night on the streets of Hollywood. What impressed Susan about LAYSS was Jason’s method for counseling and reaching the youth on the streets. "Jason cares," she says. "You can really tell he cares about the kids. He treats each person as an individual."
Ever as she works towards a Ph.D. in psychology, Susan continues as an active member in the outreach services of LAYSS and it’s efforts to provide at-risk youth with a normal and productive lifestyle. Susan Barney’s compassion and commitment have been a vital aspect of LAYSS"s continuing success, and her contributions are greatly appreciated.
Return to "In This Issue"Dear Friend,
In this newsletter you have read about the accomplishments of Jason Wittman and the LAYSS team, and how the organization has grown in 1998. The year’s accomplishments – such as moving35 youth from the streets to better lives – represent the kind of successes that organizations with vastly larger staffs and resources only dream about. But at LAYSS, these impressive results are achieved by a staff of two – Jason and an assistant!
The secret to LAYSS’s success is in the method Jason developed for reaching Hollywood’s at-risk youth. The agency relies on masters-level professional therapists to provide outreach and counseling to where its needed and when its needed. These counselors are available to the youth of Hollywood at any time of day, any day of the year.
For those of you who do not live in or near Hollywood, you may hesitate to provide further support to an organization that seems not to have an impact on your local youth. However, the pioneering methods developed at LAYSSS are already being studied and implemented by numerous other youth services organizations. In addition, the work we do in Hollywood directly impacts adolescents from all aver the country – indeed, from all over the world. Youth of all races, origins and backgrounds flock to Hollywood hoping to make money, need friends, and fill the emptiness in their lives. For a vast majority, what they discover is Hollywood’s harsh realit6y of drugs, disease and depression.
LAYSS strives to redirect adolescents, one by one, in their times of crisis. We are available to counsel and advise these youth where they hang out: on the streets. Only Los Angeles Youth Supportive Services and the Youth Rescue Fund provide on-site, on the street, professional youth counseling services 24 hours a day, every day of the year.
To continue providing this critical assistance to Hollywood’s most at-risk youth, LAYSS needs your help. By contributing to LAYSS, you will help bring vital counseling and other services to the hundreds of hurting and lonely adolescents who turn to us for help. Only with the continued support of friends like you can we ensure that 1999 will be another year of successful intervention and assistance for LAYSS.
Please renew your commitment of Los Angeles Youth Supportive Services by sending your most generous contribution.
Sincerely,
Bill R. Mangan
Chairman, LAYSS Board of Directors
To donate a vehicle to LAYSS's Youth Rescue Fund
LA Youth Supportive Services Home Page