Social Advocates for Youth: Hope and Support for the Youth of Sonoma County

Based in Santa Rosa and Sonoma, California, Social Advocates for Youth (SAY) is a non-profit organization focused on providing support, hope, and opportunities to children, youth, and families. For more than four decades, SAY has been creating a caring community where everyone can grow, thrive, and succeed.

Founded in 1971 in a two-room office in downtown Santa Rosa, Social Advocates for Youth was launched as a response to youth advocates and community leaders who were concerned about the lack of child abuse prevention and intervention services available. SAY currently offers community, counseling, and crisis programs throughout Sonoma County. The non-profit serves at-risk and high-needs individuals through age 25, including runaway and homeless youth, young parents, kids who are at risk of gang involvement, kids who need guidance in completing their education and finding a job, former foster youth and homeless young adults, youth who may be having a hard time transitioning from teen to young adulthood, and children who have been abused.

Since early 2004, SAY has run the Dr. James E. Coffee Teen Shelter on Ripley Street in Santa Rosa. Open 24 hours a day, 364 days a year, the shelter offers a respite for families in crisis as well as reunification services for homeless and runaway youth and their families. Short-term shelter, food, counseling, and referrals are provided.

Opening in the near future is the SAY Dream Center, which will be housed in the former Sutter Warrack Hospital building, also in Santa Rosa. The Dream Center will focus on four core areas of services: job training and employment, affordable housing, educational support, and health and wellness. It will be a place where the youth of Sonoma County have the hope, opportunity, and support to reach their full potential and dreams.

SAY's other programs include family and individual therapy, school-based counseling, functional family therapy, street outreach, tattoo removal services, and more.