Youth Enrichment Services - A Program Overview

In 1994, Youth Enrichment Services, Inc. (YES), a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation, was formed to specifically design and implement educational programs for minority children living in public housing and economically disadvantaged communities. Our program offices are located in the East Liberty section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, under the direction of Dennis Floyd Jones, Ph.D.  There are three components of the program:  an adolescent peer mentoring component, Mentoring Partnerships; an after-school tutoring component, the P.A.S.S. Program; and a troubled youth counseling and rehabilitation component, Diversion 2000.  

YES has a 10-year history of working with troubled youth.  Project YES, a Youth Enrichment Services, Inc. model, was developed and implemented as a pilot program in several West Virginia public housing communities from 1990 to 1992.  Results from the first sites (Jones, 1991) indicated that YES should continue its multidisciplinary approach with emphasis on creative and active learning strategies. YES is a pilot site for the Youth Standards project. The agency will be part of a year-long intensive review. Although in the pilot stages, the standards team has created an aggressive approach to working with youth-serving agencies to identify quality assurance measures that can be implemented to improve service to clients as well as improve overall functioning of the agency. The standards project addresses quality performance in fifteen areas of agency operations. YES has chosen to focus our year-long review in five areas related to Youth Standards.   The goal is to enhance the Board of Directors’ effectiveness by updating the agency’s strategic plan; creating a systematic evaluation plan for all youth programs; creating a blueprint or standard model for communicating with staff, Board members, clients/customers and funders; and helping the organization function in consonance with its mission statement.

Results of previous evaluation measures by outside sources have recognized Youth Enrichment Services, Inc. with several awards and recognition. YES has been the recipient of three national awards - two Points of Light Awards from the Bush Administration and a NARHA (National Association of Registered Housing Authority) 1990, 1991 and 1993, respectively.  Project YES was very successful (see Jones, 1991; Bonk, 1991; Jones, Dooley, & Winn, 1994; Winn, 1992; Jones, 1996) and has numerous research manuscripts published in adjudicated research journals.