Continued Implementation of Youth Intake and Assessment Center and related functions

PROJECT SUMMARY FOR 2001-JN-FX-0048

The Youth Intake and Assessment Center (YAC) in Billings, Montana is a collaborative effort between the City of Billings and Yellowstone County. The Center is strategically located in an area of the community with a very high percentage of at-risk youth and families. The Center opened in August 2000 and is housed at the Child and Family Intervention Center (CFIC). The Child and Family Intervention Center was developed by the City of Billings and the Billings Family YMCA to assist in building community collaboration around the YAC. The CFIC has a visible role in building collaboration and improving community awareness of existing problems with resources serving youth and their families in Yellowstone County. However, with the YMCA withdrawing funding from the Center, the CFIC is left without a parent organization and no stable funding source. Because the CFIC is key to providing collaboration that benefits the YAC and provides the physical site for the Center, Yellowstone County has recognized the need to assist the CFIC in securing additional funding for long-term sustainability of YAC.

Yellowstone County has an interest in assisting the CFIC to become a stable entity over the next 18 months due to the important role it continues to have in building collaboration and support for the YAC. This grant award to Yellowstone County will provide funding to allow the CFIC the time it needs to establish financial stability, independent of Yellowstone County. An RFP process is anticiapted as the method in which the applicant will select an organization to carry out these duties.