Youth Empowerment Services (YES) Waiver Program

The Child & Family team works with children and youth at risk of out-of-home placement, using a family-centered, wraparound approach to create a personalized treatment plan. We work with the family to convene a team, which meets monthly, and may consist of family, friends, neighbors, professionals, and others who are important to the youth and family. 

This service model allows Child & Family to maintain our program goals to: 

  • Reduce out-of-home placements and decrease inpatient hospitalizations

  • Provide a more complete continuum of community-based services and supports

  • Ensure families have access to parent partners & support services

  • Prevent entry into the foster care system or relinquishment of parental custody

  • Non-traditional services that provide alternative and creative forms of therapy to help improve the youth’s health, welfare, and functioning in their community, including:

    • Animal Assisted Therapy

    • Art Therapy

    • Music Therapy

    • Recreational Therapy

    • Nutritional Counseling

  • Help families adjust to special challenges related to the youth’s mental health needs by using proven practices and strategies.

  • Connect family members with others who can support them by sharing similar lived experienced.

  • Help youth find a job and be successful in it.

  • Help with stressful situations through coaching and mentoring.

  • Allow families and caretakers to take a temporary break from caring for youth enrolled in YES.

  • Take youth to YES Waiver services when no other transportation is available.

  • Provide support and model healthy interactions for the whole family while the youth temporarily lives in a therapeutic home.

  • Supplement YES services with medically necessary supports to prevent out-of-home placement.

  • Support the youth’s ability to function independently at home and in the community.

  • Help with the costs associated with a youth moving into their own home.

​Services are provided in the following counties: Dallas, Ellis, Hunt, Kaufman, Navarro, and Rockwall. For eligibility for services, a child or adolescent should meet the following criteria:

  • Must be ages 3-18

  • Must reside with legal guardian

  • Qualify for inpatient care

  • Current mental health diagnosis

Child or adolescent must also have serious functional impairments that include:

  • Risk of harm to self or others

  • Disruptive/ aggressive behavior

  • Poor school behavior


Youth must be eligible for Medicaid (parent income does not apply)

Enrollment

For more information or to request an evaluation please contact Child & Family Guidance Center ​at the following number: (866) 501-6535 (YES Inquiry Line)

yes services include