Youth Bridge Celebrates 50 years

Elena Terrell, left, and Tammy Fowler, both employees with Youth Bridge, look at a room inside the Bell House during a tour of the refurbished home at the Youth Bridge site in Fayetteville. Bell House is part of the Transitional Living Program.
Elena Terrell, left, and Tammy Fowler, both employees with Youth Bridge, look at a room inside the Bell House during a tour of the refurbished home at the Youth Bridge site in Fayetteville. Bell House is part of the Transitional Living Program.

FAYETTEVILLE — As a kid, Sean Mory said he acted like a “jerk.”

The Bentonville resident was the third child of a single mother.

“Both of my brothers were out of the house and I was running amuck,” he said.

Mory said he was 16 when he ended up at Youth Bridge, a nonprofit organization that has provided comprehensive care to troubled teens and their families for 50 years.

Mory, 26, said a counselor recognized the underlying issue that caused him to act out.

At a Glance

Youth Bridge was founded in 1963 as Boyland in Winslow by local businessmen to provide housing for homeless and neglected boys. Beginning as a small custodial-style facility for a limited number of boys, it now provides youth preventative services, counseling and shelter. Money for the early Youth Bridge was primarily through the charity and goodwill of the community. It didn’t receive government money as it does today. In the early 1970s, a decision was made to expand Boyland into a residential treatment center. A program director was hired and the new center received two state contracts. Over the next several years, Boyland merged with two similar organizations, Indian Trail House and Youth Attention Home, to form Youth Bridge.

Source: Youth Bridge

“I went to counseling sessions for six months,” he said. “During that time, I figured out a lot about myself. The therapy sessions made me realize that I was pissed at my father. He hadn’t been around since I was 2-years-old.”

That realization combined with Youth Bridge’s transitional living program led him down a smarter path, Mory said. He works as a small business financial adviser for Hawkeye Management.

The transitional living program serves homeless or near homeless people between 16 and 23 who lack an adequate support network, or who don’t have the education, skills and economic resources necessary to be self-sufficient.

“I had to clean up after myself and I couldn’t break the rules,” Mory remembers. “It was the structure that I lacked.”

Phil Bode, marketing and communication manager for Youth Bridge, said the organization serves thousands of teens and young adults annually from an eight-county area in Northwest and North Central Arkansas. Headquartered in Fayetteville, the organization provides outpatient therapy and counseling, residential substance abuse treatment, emergency shelters, academic and social support, a therapeutic group home for teens involved in the juvenile justice system and the transitional living program.

Scott Linebaugh, Youth Bridge’s executive director, said while teens face some of the same challenges they did 50 years ago, they also face new hurdles.

“Drugs and alcohol have gotten much worse,” he said. “We didn’t even have substance abuse programs 10 years ago. Today, it’s not uncommon for kids to go to a party, dump a bunch of pills in a bowl and pick one. Some of the kids say it’s easier to get pills than alcohol.”

Bode said the nonprofit group is supported with federal and state money and contributions from local foundations.

The organization has an annual budget of $8.4 million and more than 130 employees and consultants, Bode said.

Youth Bridge operates five clinical and five residential shelters in Baxter, Benton, Boone, Carroll, Madison, Marion, Newton and Washington counties.

“The need doesn’t seem to be slacking off or lessening, but the funding and the attention is dropping off because of cost and because of demands in other places,” Bode said. “Without continued funding, we’re in trouble.”

Bode attributes the growing number of troubled teens to family neglect.

“These are kids who’ve never had anyone give a darn about them and they’ve made one bad decision,” Bode said. “We try to teach them self-respect and that they have some control over their lives and they can make a difference. Kids respond to that. Some better than others.”

Kylia Rector said she was 19 and homeless when she learned about Youth Bridge from a friend who was enrolled in the housing program.

The Fayetteville resident, now 26, said she had a “phenomenal” father who worked all the time and a stay-at-home mother who “wasn’t phenomenal.”

“My mom and I never got along,” she said. “After graduation, I became homeless and was couch surfing.”

Rector said she learned how to budget, cook, clean and shop for groceries.

“At first, I was a little hesitant because I had never heard of Youth Bridge,” she said. “I gave it a try and it helped me get on my feet and become stable.”

Rector said she now has a job teaching living skills to clients of the transitional living program.

Sharing her experiences helps her connect with the teens and young adults, Rector said.

Petie Cobb, Benton County juvenile probation officer, said the organization also serves kids involved in the juvenile justice system.

“The kids that are involved in the system go through Youth Bridge for counseling, shelter care and when we put them on home monitoring, Youth Bridge provides it,” she said. “They provide psychological evaluations and they recently started a mentoring program. Youth Bridge is probably involved with a third of the kids we serve.”

Both Rector and Bode agreed while Youth Bridge helps most kids, some clients don’t want to be helped.

“One of the saddest things I see is when a kid is about to complete the program and then they intentionally break a rule because they don’t want to leave,” Linebaugh said. “They do it because where they’re going is much worse than where they are.”

Bode said Youth Bridge isn’t a “lock-down” facility.

Most kids choose to be there because they want a second chance or because they’ve been exposed to the criminal justice system, Bode said.

“We can’t make them stay unless the court orders them to stay,” he said. “If they walk off the property, the only thing we can do is call the police.”

Bode said clients are typically referred through parents, schools, courts or doctors.

About 3,400 people receive services annually, he said.

“What’s sad, is that after 50 years, there’s still a need,” Bode said. “We’d like to work ourselves out of a job, but there’s never an opportunity. There’s always a new group of kids coming in who need help.”

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