Posts By: Sondra Lehmann

Often, youth and their families know best what they need and how to make services work for them, which makes it important for legislators to hear from youth when drafting policy that impacts them. That’s why TNOYS hosts Youth in Action Capitol Day during each Texas legislative session. The timing couldn’t have been better this… Read more »

  At the end of 2016, Austin community organizations successfully completed a collaborative challenge launched on September 7th to house 50 youth experiencing homelessness in 100 days, with at least 50% of these being youth with foster care involvement.  In addition to the direct impact of housing youth, this effort represented a significant step forward… Read more »

Attendees at yesterday’s Youth Safety Summit heard sobering stories and statistics about youth falling victim to human trafficking here in Texas, but they also left armed with new tools to fight the problem and encouraged about state leaders’ dedication to this important issue. The summit, hosted by TNOYS in partnership with Roy Maas’ Youth Alternatives… Read more »

  By Lara O’Toole   For many years, it was considered the norm to physically restrain or seclude individuals who presented challenging behaviors while in mental health facilities, prisons, nursing homes and even schools. While this practice still occurs all too often, over the past decade the use of seclusion and restraint interventions has come… Read more »

    TNOYS was pleased to host a small gathering last week for leaders of our member organizations to meet and hear from Texas Department of Children and Family Services Commissioner Hank Whitman. Whitman took on his new role earlier this year, after having served for 22 years with the Department of Public Safety and… Read more »

The Houston Alumni & Youth (HAY) Center, a program of Harris County Protective Services (HCPS) that provides services to foster youth transitioning to adulthood, is unique among TNOYS members. That’s because it is a public-private partnership that relies on both county and private funding. According to Joel Levine, executive director of HCPS, that is key… Read more »

Here at TNOYS, we’re excited to see momentum growing around the effort to better understand and address homelessness among young people. For many people, the laws that apply to unaccompanied, homeless or runaway youth can seem vague and complicated, making it sometimes difficult to find solutions to help them access basic services. Last month, TNOYS’… Read more »

  Working to secure a successful future for young people can be inspiring, rewarding, fun – and also challenging. In a state as vast as Texas, it’s not always easy for youth services professionals to feel connected to colleagues in other communities, or to the legislators who are making important policy decisions that impact their… Read more »

Yesterday, TNOYS released a process evaluation report sharing findings and recommendations from our work on Youth Count Texas!, the first-ever statewide count of youth experiencing homelessness in our state. One of the key findings of the report is that young people facing housing instability have different needs and behaviors than their adult counterparts, requiring unique… Read more »

Texas Network of Youth Services sees youth as resources, not as problems to be fixed, and we’re not alone. Increasingly, service providers are beginning to realize that youth and their families often know best what they need and how to make services work for them. One of the pillars of our work at TNOYS is… Read more »