The History of YAP

YAP has its roots in the most dynamic juvenile justice reform effort in the US to date.

1969: Jerry Miller appointed head of JJ in the state of Massachusetts. It was a state with the oldest institutional system for kids in the country and it had been scandalized by mistreatment of kids and misuse of funds. Jerry was hired by a Republican Governor to reform the system. After trying to put a happy face on these turn of the century institutions for about a year, Jerry and his staff (which included Tom Jeffers (YAP's founder and current Board Chairman, and Paul DeMuro) decided the institutions themselves were sick - they made the kids worse and they made the staff sick too. They decided the only way to fix them was to close them. Jerry went about reducing the institutional population of the Massachusetts training schools from about 1,100 to 60 in less than two years.

Jerry's work set off a tidal wave of JJ reform (remember that there is only a bureaucratic distinction between JJ kids and child welfare kids - in reality they are the same and it just depends which system they wind up in) that swept the country. He also sparked enormous opposition from entrenched interests.

November 3, 1975: When Jerry left Massachusetts he went to Harrisburg, PA. He received original funding was from the Center for Community Alternatives-the agency assigned the responsibility of removing about 300 juvenile offenders from the adult State Correctional Institution in Camp Hill, PA and placing them in more appropriate community-based programs and settings. After three months, we were serving more than one hundred young people who were court ordered from the Camp Hill prison. With the support and intervention of advocates, most of these young people were returned with their natural or extended families. Tom Jeffers and Minette Bauer were very much a part of this effort and it was here that YAP was formed.

June, 1976: The Department of Public Welfare granted YAP funds to continue serving the clients released from Camp Hill prison. At that time, YAP began to receive direct referrals from the juvenile courts and county children and youth agencies. The program population underwent a shift as the Camp Hill clients graduated and were placed by direct referrals from the counties. YAP developed contracts with its referring authorities and became directly accountable to these agencies.

When you look at "custodial populations" nationally, led by the census of adult prisons, YAP's timing could hardly have been worse. In about 1980 a historic increase in prison populations started that continued for 30 years. The US prison population increased 500% during that time! In the face of this dramatic rise in populations and hateful political rhetoric, YAP pushed against the tide. We grew beyond any reasonable expectations by the sheer force of our convictions and ideas. What we brought to the table was desperately needed, although it was not popular to say so in a climate of "tough love" and "lock 'em'up justice". While prison and other custodial populations skyrocketed, YAP plugged away, one kid/one family at a time, making a difference. Now, 30 years later, we have begun to see for the first time since our founding, evidence that the pendulum is swinging back. Our approach and our values have remained intact. They guided us through the most punishing decades in history and we have emerged on the other side stronger and ready to continue the work of. Jerry, Tom, Paul and our new CEO, Jeff Fleischer.

2008 Now, 33 years later the work of Jerry and the dreams of countless live on in the form of YAP which now serves 10,000 families each year. Since 1975, YAP has operated 125 programs serving 75 counties across 15 states and Washington DC. We have 2300 staff serving 4500 young people and their families at any given time. We also have five programs in Ireland. We provide support and assistance to sister agencies in Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Belfast Northern Ireland and technical assistance in Hawaii. Our mission is to provide community-based alternatives for the care and protection of individuals who are, have been, or may be subject to compulsory placement in public or private institutions. Our philosophy stems from the premise that even the most troubled individuals and families have strengths and capabilities that can and must be developed.

This "Mass Experiment" as it came to be called, lives on in the form of YAP who is "Celebrating 30 Years of changing biographies" one person at a time.

Founder and President, Thomas Jeffers, created the YAP program model in response to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's ruling in 1975 that banned youth from being incarcerated with adult inmates at the State Correctional Institution in Camp Hill. At the time, this prison housed serious, violent juvenile offenders, many with felony convictions. The Attorney General's Office and the Department of Corrections needed assistance managing and treating the displaced, committed juveniles; they turned to YAP for solutions. Within three months of launching the family-focused advocacy model for juvenile reentry, program participants were successfully reunited with their families or residing in other appropriate community settings. One of the main objectives of YAP then, as today, is to provide communities with safe, effective, and economical alternatives to institutional placement.