Our speaker of the day was Allison Brown-Corson, Director of Development for Youth Emergency Services.
Youth Emergency Services (YES) was founded in 1974 by a group of community volunteers who noticed homeless youth hanging around in Omaha's Old Market district.
At first, YES was led strictly by volunteers -- they invited youth in crisis to stay in their homes. One morning, a volunteer woke to her kitchen cabinets being painted green, and the volunteers decided it was time to invest in a home, which became known as the YES house.
The YES house (known today as the Emergency Shelter) has been serving youth in crisis for nearly 40 years. As the organization and the need to serve homeless and at-risk youth has grown, so have YES' programs. YES added its Street Outreach Program in 1999. This program is unique to YES as the only street outreach program in Omaha targeted specifically to homeless and runaway youth.
YES launched its Transitional Living Program (TLP) and Maternity Home in 2008. These programs help youth in crisis learn the life skills necessary to become independent and self-sufficient
YES created a Mentoring Program to assist youth in its long-term programs. and in 2012, YES expanded its Mentoring Program to create a partnership with Early Childhood Services, which serves teens and young parents.
In the past decade, YES has helped more than 5,800 youth escape a crisis situation. YES assisted more than 1,000 homeless and at-risk youth in 2012-13 alone. YES is the only organization in Omaha that focuses directly on helping runaway and homeless youth turn their lives around in a positive direction.
Allison presented a brief video introducing YES and discussed several examples highlighting their services and the need for their services dealing with 30 percent of their clients being either pregnant or parenting. There is a pregnancy house in Bellevue.
She emphasized that "not all kids have loving parents" causing many to run away from home to the streets. 90 percent of youth that are living on the streets are approached by members of the "SexTrade" and of those approached, 50 percent go into "the life". Typical age of clients are ages 12 to 22, boys and girls, with the average age of 18.
Allison discussed the needs of the shelters to service their youth. Donations are strongly emphasized and include money of course consumables such as tooth paste, soap, deodorant (Allison said, deodorant especially for the boys). Also personal items such as Plain white or black t-shirts (all sizes), Boxers (all sizes), Larger size women's underwear, Bottled water, Capri Sun, Diapers, Wipes, Feminine Hygiene items and Full size hygiene items. Allison mentioned the YES plans to expand from 1500 to 3500 square feet in their facilities.
