Youth For Tomorrow: Helping Troubled Youth Overcome Life’s Obstacles

There are many reasons why promising youngsters take a turn for the worst and find themselves in difficult predicaments when they reach adulthood. The children are not to blame for problems such as growing up in dysfunctional families, having a learning disability, living in neighborhoods where drugs and crime are prevalent, or having a chemical imbalance in their bodies. These problems, however, should be addressed as early as possible in order be able to help these kids live normal, productive lives as adults.

Youth For Tomorrow (YFT) is a non-profit organization that aims to help high risk adolescents cope with the issues that they face from day to day. They provide educational, behavioral health, and residential services to children, as well as their families to ensure their health and safety. The organization also aims to teach these children the necessary life skills in order to have a better future.

YFT welcomed its first set of young male residents in 1986 after they had acquired a piece of property and constructed a home for these boys to live in. As the program grew, so did the YFT campus. They eventually constructed a home for female residents and soon the number of girls living in the YFT campus grew to almost half of its population. Aside from additional homes for both the boys and the girls, YFT also constructed the Joe Gibbs Center for Academic and Physical Education which was completed in 2003.

YFT strives to provide a well-rounded service which not only takes care of the residents’ physical needs. They also strive to meet their spiritual, emotional, and educational needs. YFT also takes in children and adolescents from different cultural and societal backgrounds, and so the organization makes sure that their staff members are made aware of these differences and are respectful of them.