YTS was founded in 2010 in response to Chicago's high rates of youth violence. Its mission is to reduce at-risk behavior among youth through teaching better lifestyle choices. YTS uses cognitive behavioral therapy and social emotional learning to help youth develop self-awareness, relationship skills, and decision making. The core S.E.L.F. program includes modules on spirituality, education, lifestyle, and family to prevent violence and promote success. YTS's goals are to help youth overcome barriers, improve social interactions, and increase awareness of academic and career opportunities.

1. YTS: A Historical Perspective
2010 - 2014

2. Mission
Youth Transformation Services (YTS) is committed to
reducing at-risk behavior in youth by teaching them to
make better lifestyle choices.

3. Vision
Youth Transformation Services (YTS) will help youth to
value education, live with integrity, lead by example,
mentor others, and create positive change.

4. Why YTS? – Violence Intervention/Prevention
YTS was founded as an empowerment, training and
development group targeting violence intervention and
prevention among at-risk youth in response to the City of
Chicago’s “National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention
Report” (Released in 2011).
According to report, “violent crime in Chicago is at a 30-
year low, yet in 2010, 1,109 school-aged youth were shot
and nearly half of Chicago’s homicide victims were young
people between the ages of 10 and 25.” As a result, the
City of Chicago anti-violence efforts seek to address
violence using a multidisciplinary approach that utilizes
combinations of Prevention, Intervention, and Response
strategies.

5. Why YTS? – A Citywide Call to Action
As part of his plan to reduce youth violence in Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emmanuel
partnered with Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and launched a
collaborative effort to reduce violence that includes civic, faith-based, community, and
business leaders in a plan to cut violence in half by the year 2020, under the tenant that
youthviolenceispreventable. Youth violence is a serious but preventable problem.
Violence intervention/prevention efforts should:
• Build skills & competencies that reduce violence,
• Enhance problem-solving and communication skills, and model proper
conflict resolution,
• Engage youth in community volunteerism & civic engagement,
• Reduce factors that encourage at-risk youth to perpetrate violence,
• Promote protective factors that prevent volatile encounters.
YTS provides effective violence prevention strategies that curb violence and
foster positive lifestyle change.
Task Force for Community Preventive ServicesCity of Chicago youth anti-violence cross-sector

6. Why YTS? – Violence is Preventable
Chicago’s “public health” approach to violence prevention integrates the cognitive
behavioral therapy(CBT) model and social emotional learning (SEL), which recognizes
that good mental health, social skills, and the ability of youth to control their own
behavior as key factors to preventing and/orreducing youthviolence.
YTS developed its programs based on the State of Illinois SEL goals and
standards:
Goal 1 - Develop self-awareness and self-management skills to achieve
school and life success.
Goal 2 - Use social-awareness and interpersonal skills to establish and
maintain positive relationships.
Goal 3 - Demonstrate decision-making skills and responsible behaviors
in personal, school, and community contexts.
State of Illinois Social /Emotional Learning skills
http://www.isbe.net/ils/social_emotional/standards.htm
The Interrupters: Chicago Project for Violence Prevention

7. YTS S.E.L.F. Program:
 Reduce negative and volatile behaviors among youth at-risk.
 Improve self-awareness, self-esteem and self-worth among at-risk risk.
 Provide strategies for goal attainment, academic achievement, and personal success.
 Promote collaboration and networking amongst service providers and organizations.
 Provide ongoing training to increase the capacity of community partners and their
service to at-risk youth.
How? S.E.L.F. Program

8. S.E.L.F. A Conceptual Framework
SpiritualityEducationLifestyleFamily

9. S.E.L.F Modules
Spirituality Education  Lifestyle  Family
Know YourSELF helps identify and reduce
negative and volatile behaviors among youth, by
exploring emotional triggers that both influence
and result in poor choices. YTS provide many
strategies that are designed to prevent and
reduce risk factors that impede safety, positive
decision making processing and the involvement
and exposure to volatile emotional triggers.
Youth Meditation Group introduce youth to
such techniques as affirmations, visualization,
yoga and meditation, designed to reduce
emotional anxieties of anger and stress, and
demonstrate how to overcome negativity while
developing positive beliefs and attitudes of self.
Youth Empowered2Succeed introduces goal
setting strategies as frameworks, helping youth in
the achievement of their personal and academic
goals. This learning experience helps youth
examine their relationships between academic
courses, career goals, and how it impacts their
personal and professional success in life.
Spirituality
Our spirituality model develops interpersonal skills designed to promote self-
awareness, self-management of emotional anger and stress, as well as demonstrate
how spiritual values can help change emotions of fear, uncertainty, and anxieties
that can result in negative behaviors.
Education
Our education model serves as an ancillary to student learning. Youth can will build
skills, develop strategies and competencies designed to reduce the risk factors of
violence, by creating SMART goals and objectives for successful achievement.
Lifestyle
Our lifestyle management model uses social-awareness and interpersonal skills to
establish and maintain positive relationships within their family and peer structures
by teaching youth how to recognize the feelings and perspectives of others.
Activities include individual and group similarities and differences, learning new
decision-making skills to improve one’s academic and prosocial behaviors.
Family
Establish positive peer family relationships by cooperating and communicating
respectfully and constructively within the family unit. Strengthen families in their
role of guiding, disciplining, and instilling sound values within the family unit.

10. Program Goals & Objectives
Objective 1: Teach at-youth how to Reduce
volatile risk factors and how to improve social
interactions with others through the development
of improved decision-making, problem-solving
skills, personal abilities, and spiritual values.
Objective 2: Increase at-risk youth’s awareness
regarding academic achievement and personal
success, through the development of
demonstrated career pathways.
Objective 3: Establish positive family interactions
and unifications among at-risk youth and their
families, in effort to reduce negative exchanges
and feelings towards each other.
Goal: To demonstrate how violence among youth is preventable

11. Know YourSELF
Goal: To assist at-risk youth overcome adversities and identify any barriers that
prevent them from achieving success in four targeted areas: Spirituality,
Education, Lifestyle, & Family (S.E.L.F.); and then equip them to achieve
measurable success in each area.
Objectives: Explore the triggers that result in high-risk behaviors;
 Deepen youth’s understanding of the cause and effect of their high-risk
behavior choices;
 Providing solutions that help to reduce and/or eliminate the behavioral,
emotional and volatile triggers;
 Demonstrate how youth can develop and maintain positive lifestyle choices.
• Module 1: Help!
• Module 2: Options
• Module 3: Proceed
• Module 4: Evolves
Make a difference  Education is power  Right choices lead to victory  Integrity breeds honor  Teach by example

12. Youth Meditation Group
Make a difference  Education is power  Right choices lead to victory  Integrity breeds honor  Teach by example
Goal: To Introduce at-risk youth to alternative methods designed to reduce
emotional risk factors i.e., anger, stress, and negative attitudes.
Objective: Conduct affirmations, visualization, yoga, and meditation
workshops to transform individual negative emotions, anxieties and
behaviors into cultures of calmness, inner peace, and self-esteem.
 Module 1: The Power of Affirmation
 Module 2: The Power of Visualization
 Module 3: Yoga 4 Youth
 Module 4: The Power of Meditation

13. Youth Empowered 2
Succeed
Make a difference  Education is power  Right choices lead to victory  Integrity breeds honor  Teach by example
Goal: To Introduce goal setting strategies to at-risk youth, to examine their
academic courses, career goals, and academic success.
Objectives: To Engage at-risk youth in course lessons and preparation plans,
designed to improve critical thinking and decision-making processes
relevant to goal attainment, academic achievement, and personal success.
 Module 1: Journey 2 Success
 Module 2: Write the Vision
 Module 3: B-SMART
 Module 4: Ready! Set! YES!

14. Mission Accomplished … Things Done Well

15.  Partnership with Metropolitan Family Services Upward
Bound Program and Jazzin @ the Met Annual fundraiser
training youth for success
 YTS 1st Annual Fundraiser
 Partnership with Phalanx Family Services and Fenger High
School for Youth Meditation Group
 Professional Development Alliance for Cook, Grundy and
Will County School Administrators
 Victim’s Impact training for Joliet Police Dept.
 25th National Youth-At-Risk Conference presentation on
How to Transform Student Behavior
Organization Impact

16. Resources
.
Centers for Disease Control: Youth Violence Prevention
http://www.cdc.gov/Violenceprevention/youthviolence/index.html
City of Chicago- National Forum on Youth Violence Prevention
http://www.cityofchicago.org/dam/city/depts/mayor/supp_info/ylpFINAL.pdf
Illinois Common Core Standards
http://commoncoreil.org/
Illinois State Board of Education – Social /Emotional Learning
http://www.isbe.net/ils/social_emotional/standards.htm

17. Join Us!
www.youthtransformationservices.org