The Montgomery County Youth Service Bureau has received a grant of $527,179 from Lilly Endowment Inc. to help expand its programming.
This expansion will include three components. First, the YSB will be hiring a full-time therapist. This therapist will be a bridge for youth who are on a waiting list for mental health services at local mental health centers. They will be able to see youth in the gap while they are waiting for longer term services. This program will be free of charge and will serve YSB youth and other community youth as there is availability.
Second, the YSB will start a Middle School Alternative School, modeled after the successful High School Alternative School program YSB already provides. Additional details will be announced in the future.
Third, the YSB will start a boys group mentoring program for middle and high school students. The YSB already has a girls group mentoring program called Inspire.
These programs are being funded through Lilly Endowment’s initiative, Strengthening Youth Programs in Indiana. The aim of this initiative is to help youth-serving organizations working throughout Indiana improve their abilities to promote the academic, physical and social well-being of young people, ages five through 18.
The goal for these new services is to fill gaps in the continuum of care for youth. These particular programs were chosen after evaluating the needs of the youth in the community.
“We are so grateful to Lilly Endowment for its support of these much-needed programs, said Karen Branch, YSB executive director. “Having access to mental health services, educational programming for exceptional needs and mentoring will have a tremendous impact on the health and well-being of our youth. These are programs we have wanted to implement for some time but did not have the funding to move forward.”
The money being provided will fund programs for the next three years.
“Lilly Endowment is making a tremendous investment in Montgomery County and across the state of Indiana, and helping to change lives and communities with its support,” Branch said.
The Montgomery County Youth Service Bureau is one of 187 organizations receiving grants through Strengthening Youth Programs in Indiana.
“Indiana’s youth-serving organizations are crucial to the healthy development of children and youth across the state,” said Ted Maple, Lilly Endowment’s vice president for education. “The challenges these organizations have faced in meeting the needs of young people in recent years have made their work increasingly difficult. Lilly Endowment is pleased to support their efforts to strengthen programs and serve more youth more effectively.”
Lilly Endowment launched Strengthening Youth Programs in Indiana Initiative in 2022 with an invitational round of grants to nine national youth-serving organizations to help them expand and enhance the work of their Indiana affiliates or chapters.
