Youth are some of the most underserved individuals, and they become even more underserved when challenges of mental illness, trauma, substance abuse, LGBTQIA+, ethnic or racial differences are thrown in the mix. Heartland Counseling Services’ Youth Peer Support Program can now be utilized to wrap services around these youth and their families. This program creates a Wellness and Recovery Service Plan (WRSP) in conjunction with counseling to help them address their challenges and create goals so that they can be productive citizens and lead rewarding lives instead of getting lost in the system, in residential facilities, homeless, or behind bars.

The Youth Peer Support Program (YPSP) facilitates recovery as the youth served defines it and assists individuals and their families in initiating and maintaining the process of recovery and resiliency to improve quality of life, increase resiliency, and to promote health and wellness. As defined by DHHS Division of Behavioral Health, “the core element of the service is the development of a relationship based on shared lived experience and mutuality between the provider and the individual/family. Services facilitate effective system navigation, empowerment, hope, resiliency, voice and choice, and system of care values.”

The overall goal of YPSP is to provide wrap-around services to youth individually and in groups to eliminate out of home placements, reduce anxiety and depression, improve school attendance, and assist in putting the youth on a track to personal worth and success.