YMCA Youth & Family Services
Y-FRIENDz is a mentoring program that is a part of the YMCA Youth & Family Services department in San Diego County. Y-FRIENDz is a one-to-one mentoring program designed to serve kids, ages 4-15, who have one or both parents incarcerated in prison. Surprsingly, there are over 15,000 such children in San Diego county alone! Y-FRIENDz staff recruit mentors and aim to make high quality matches with the mentors and mentees. Mentors make a one year commitment and are asked to meet with their mentee once per week for one to three hours.
As the social services department of the YMCA of San Diego County, YMCA Youth & Family Services (YFS) has been providing services since 1970 and now reaches approximately 40,000 at-risk children, youth and family members each year. Our mission is to support and strengthen children, youth and families to help them reach their fullest potential. Our program areas include the prevention and treatment of child abuse, shelter care for troubled and homeless adolescents, basic living skills training, substance-abuse, gang, and teenage pregnancy prevention, counseling, training and mentoring, after-school programming, and much more.
