Thirty years ago, after 20 years working in mental health and addiction treatment, I realized that the most cost-effective and impactful way to address these problems is to reach young people before they start or in the earliest stages of problem development.
I am grateful for everyone who helped Youth First develop a preventive system of care that is evidence-based and produces significant outcomes for children and families.
The founding board included individuals from local business, law enforcement, mental health, hospital administration, judicial system, school administration, local government, and other non-profit organizations. I am very grateful for their mentoring and the subsequent Board members who helped Youth First grow into a highly impactful organization. I was especially fortunate to have the support and guidance of the Welborn Baptist Foundation and Marjorie Soyugenc during the early years.
EVERYONE wins with Youth First – children and families, school systems, business and industry, healthcare providers, government, and taxpayers. There is an estimated $18 dollar return for every dollar spent on effective prevention. It is an investment opportunity we cannot afford to ignore.
Thank you to all of Youth First’s supporters, volunteers, collaborators, and staff who made these first 25 years possible. I hope there will be many more years of celebration, especially for the young people we serve. As one student once told her Youth First Social Worker: “You make my heart feel good.”
With
Gratitude, William Wooten, MD Founder Youth First, Inc.
Dear Friends of Youth First,
A “silver lining” is the promise of hope in the midst of stormy weather or stressful times, and with your help, that is exactly what Youth First provides to thousands of young people, their families, and teachers.
In 1998, our original Board of Directors envisioned an organization that strengthened mental health and reduced substance misuse, but I am not sure the founders imagined just how widespread and impactful this “silver lining” would become.
Twenty-five years later, we celebrate Youth First’s Silver Anniversary and all we have collectively accomplished. Today Youth First’s evidence-based model of prevention is available to over 50,000 students plus their parents and teachers in 117 schools and communities across 13 Indiana counties. We employ 112 people, including 87 Youth First Social Workers, and deliver over 300 prevention programs a year.
One of my favorite sayings is “Bloom where you are planted,” and clearly, Youth First has done that in spades. None of it would be possible without the contributions of many “master gardeners” –our talented staff, passionate volunteers, committed donors, and collaborative partners.
With your continued support, Youth First’s “silver lining” will help more young people thrive into adulthood.
Thank you,
Parri O. Black President & CEO
Youth First, Inc.
The Secret to Our Success
The passionate and committed individuals on Youth First’s Board of Directors are truly the “secret sauce” in our recipe for success. Their leadership, wisdom, and advocacy are essential to Youth First’s longevity and impact. We salute the
Dr. William Wooten
Steve Fritz
Bob Tiemann
Carol Lynch
Mary Ellen Farabaugh
Rick Schulz
Tom Austerman
Carl Chapman
Jim Back
CAROL LYNCH
hundreds of people who have been Board members, committee members, or volunteers over the years, especially those who have accepted the responsibility of serving as Board Chair.
Phil DeLong
John Kamin
Angie Brawdy
Crystal Wildeman
Jeff Deig
Christy Walker
Dennis Lamey
Cheryl Wathen
Lauren Kaiser
Youth First Founding Board Member & Volunteer
I first met Dr. William Wooten around 1995-96. Little did I know at this time what an impact he would have on my life. He talked often about how we, as a community, needed to do something more to help young people with the many issues they were facing. He was determined, he was persistent, and he would not take “no” for an answer.
I saw his passion, I watched him tear up over children he tried to help, and I saw his total commitment to bettering the lives of young people. It was contagious. Oh yes, many people doubted he could accomplish his goals, but I
saw something very special in the work he was embarking on and others did, too.
Bill has accomplished the impossible. Youth First is an amazing organization. I am honored to have witnessed Youth First grow from the checkbook in Bill’s back pocket to what it is today, and I am thankful Bill asked me to join in his crusade. I love where Youth First is today.
I thank everyone that has been a part of Youth First’s 25 years of success. You are the “Silver Lining” in the lives of young people. Thanks for sharing your love with thousands of young people. As the saying goes, “When you look into the eyes of love, you see the face of God!”
Cheers to Youth First!
Celebrating Our Champions
In 2008, Youth First established the Dr. William Wooten Champion of Youth First Award to honor those who have gone “above and beyond” to help the organization meet its mission. The late Marjorie Soyugenc and the Welborn Baptist Foundation were the first to receive the award as the original supporters of Dr. Wooten’s vision for Youth First. Marj was the President & CEO of Welborn Baptist Hospital for 13 years before leading the foundation for many years. We will be forever grateful to her and all of our past Champions.
VALORIE DASSEL LCSW, LCAC Youth First Social Worker
Youth First, in my humble opinion, is one of the best things that has ever happened to this community. Our students from grade school through high school have access to social workers who have become integrated in their school community. This integration breaks down the stigma when reaching out for help. As a parent, I can also share that having access to a trained professional who is not emotionally involved in your child’s life is an
invaluable resource! As a Youth First Social Worker at Mater Dei High School for 20 years, I have been so blessed to witness the tremendous growth of Youth First.
There is nothing more wonderful than having a student from years ago reach out to share how well they are doing. Of course they often say they don’t know where they would be without the support they received from Youth First. But what they don’t realize is that it was the whole community rising up together to support them during such a critical time of development. As a Youth First Social Worker, I am simply blessed to walk alongside them during this part of their journey.
For a Quarter Century, the Results Last!
1998
2000
Youth First starts providing prevention programs for youth and families.
Marj Soyugenc and the Welborn Baptist Foundation provide the seed money to help Dr. Bill Wooten launch Youth First.
2004
Parri O. Black takes the helm as Youth First President & CEO.
2001
The original Y-Guy logo is introduced.
2002
Davi Stein-Kiley is hired as one of the first Youth First Social Workers embedded in Vanderburgh, Warrick, Posey, and Diocese schools.
2004
More donors step up to support Youth First’s mission to strengthen youth and families. Prevention programs expand to Gibson County.
2003
We launched partnerships to embed our first Youth First Social Workers, including Elizabeth Christmas, with EVSC, Mt. Vernon, North Posey, and New Harmony schools. We also held the first Passport to Adventure Auction!
2005
Our social work staff multiplies to 28 with the help of federal grants awarded to the EVSC.
2006
2007
Youth First program graduates share their life-saving and life-changing stories!
2010
Programs (such as Strengthening Families) and staff continue to multiply!
Young people helped by Youth First Social Workers and programs grow up to be awesome advocates.
2008
The teen on the right benefits from Youth First and later becomes a Board member.
2006 Independent evaluations by the Diehl Consulting Group begin annually, confirming Youth First’s powerful impact.
2009
Despite the recession, we continue strengthening youth and families, expanding services and programs to 50 schools in 4 Indiana counties.
2013
Youth First celebrates 15 years of service under the leadership of these past Board Chairs. Our staff of 42 now includes 32 Master’s level social workers.
2011
Our program offerings expand as families build strong bonds through the Spanish-language Strengthening Families program.
2014
Youth First grows to Pike County. Our success depends on strong partnerships with a dozen school systems and 50+ schools.
2016
Youth First grows again to Daviess County. Our new Don Mattingly Youth Awards recognize students who demonstrate many of the baseball legend’s winning character traits.
2014
Youth First’s logo transforms again.
2012
Youth are “In It To Win It” with the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens program, provided in partnership with the YMCA.
2015
Youth First now serves Martin County. The Reconnecting Youth program fosters positive relationships, readiness, and resiliency.
2018
Dr. Wooten receives the Sagamore of the Wabash Award at our 20th Anniversary Emerald Gala.
2017
Our annual Breakfast of Champions thanks and honors supporters like Lt. Governor Suzanne Crouch.
2018
The State of Indiana supports scaling Youth First’s model to more schools and communities, and we grew to Monroe, Morgan and Orange counties.
2021
School buildings reopen, we expand to Perry County, and we continue coaching kids to thrive as we now embed 80 Youth First Social Workers and prevention programs in 105 schools in 13 counties.
2023
We are proud of our 112 dedicated and talented staff members as we celebrate 25 years of strengthening youth and families!
83 Social Workers
322 Prevention Programs
117 Schools in 13 Counties
2020
We grow again, this time to Dubois County. When the Covid-19 pandemic closes school buildings, we pivot to provide remote support and virtual resources. Youth First Social Workers and staff are on the front lines distributing meals, reassuring families, and encouraging teachers.
2019
Dedicated volunteers, supporters, and school partners help us grow to 74 schools in 10 Indiana counties!
2022
50,000 Students + Parents & Teachers
We grow to Lawrence County and continue to support students, families and school staff with post-Covid mental health needs. Camp Memories is offered for children grieving family losses.
DR. WILLIAM WOOTEN Youth First Founder
My wife Mona and I began our family medical practices with Welborn Clinic in Newburgh in the late seventies. In 1985, Welborn Baptist Hospital opened Mulberry Center, a mental health and addiction treatment facility. I had an interest in addiction and mental health and subsequently became Medical Director of Addiction Services. In 1991, I left the Welborn Clinic to practice fulltime in addiction medicine and during the last five or six years of my career, I focused my practice on adolescent addiction.
LifeSkills Training WhyTry
Youth First Social Workers
During these years, I was continually frustrated by an inability to help the adolescent patients we were seeing. Children didn't often respond to traditional treatment and self-help support groups. By the time kids came to me, they were frequently alienated from family, alienated from healthy friends, in legal trouble, out of school or didn’t want to go to school, and a judge would court order them to come and see me. They’d show up with their probation officers, sometimes wearing an orange jumpsuit and shackles, and an insurance company would give me a week to try to fix all of that. It was basically a hopeless situation a good percentage of the time, and you can only do that for so long before you think, “Well, what are we doing here?”
Tween Series Teen Series
I went to the medical library. I was asking myself, “What can we do to reach them earlier? What approach will have a lasting impact on kids’ thinking and behavior? What is more likely to really work?” I found a monograph published by the National Institute on Drug Abuse about evidence-based prevention, and I thought, “This is it.” I studied that little book, researched the programs they were advocating, and started dreaming about starting these programs all over the region – a system of care that would reach kids, at an earlier stage of problem development, with programs that would bridge the boundaries between schools and school systems.
Stories of Change
LEAH WENTZEL BARGER Youth First Success Story
When I was in 4th grade, I was helped immensely by a Youth First Social Worker at my school. At the beginning of the school year, I had a lot of trouble adjusting to my new classroom. I was experiencing actual panic attacks. But when I started working with Christine Weinzapfel-Hayden, our school’s Youth First Social Worker, she taught me that what I was experiencing was anxiety, and there were coping skills that I could learn and use to help manage it.
Not only did Christine give me a toolkit that I could use to reduce my panic attacks and attend classes regularly, but she also increased my confidence in the classroom by letting me know she was a friend of mine who was always there for me, right down the hall whenever I needed her.
I am now 24 years old and graduated from Indiana University with my Bachelors in Public Health. I’ve moved down to San Antonio, Texas, with my husband, where I work on a research study as a project manager while also
pursuing my Master’s in Public Health at the University of Texas Health Science Center.
I am now someone who knows that my anxiety doesn’t have to define me, nor does it have to hold me back from anything that I want to do in life.
Congratulations, Youth First, on 25 years of helping kids reach their full potential!
QUINT MCGOWAN
Youth First Success Story
When I was in high school at Reitz Memorial, I worked with a Youth First Social Worker who taught me coping skills to manage time, anger, stress, and anxiety. That social worker and Youth First collectively guided me through my young adulthood, and now I am succeeding.
With those learned skills, I was able to graduate college and I am now working as an IT professional. I currently work as a consultant for a global information technology company.
The Youth First Social Worker also introduced me to using music as an outlet to cope with my problems. I am still making music and am well known for my music here in Evansville. I am starting to gather followers that believe in my music, as I believed it would help get me out of dark places.
I appreciate what Youth First has done for me and so many others! I believe it will continue to grow and help those who need it. I am proud to be a part of this organization and will look forward to it growing even more.
Happy 25th Anniversary, Youth First. Wishing you many more to come!
MANDY SIMS
Youth First Success Story
When I was a young mother, I learned about Youth First’s Family First program through a teacher at Fairlawn Elementary School, where my two sons were enrolled. We had just come out of a traumatic situation, and I was in a new relationship with my current husband. The school recommended the program as a way for us to blend our family, get used to one another, and learn parenting skills that I had never been taught before.
I loved that the program offered dinner, so I didn’t have to go home after work and cook and then get them to the program. We were also given games so we could learn how to play with one another. This brought us a lot closer. We would take those games home and keep playing them – which is not something we did together before.
home and I did the new behaviors and they knew to say, “You’re welcome!” At first it felt a little bit strange, but we got used to it. And then it just became a natural way of life.
My boys are now adults, and they are amazing young men. I don’t think those things would’ve come naturally for them if we would’ve just continued on alone without Family First. It was huge to have someone there helping you, working with you, teaching you things to do and say as a parent and then helping you practice. That program changed me as a mother and the trajectory of our relationship.
My favorite part of each session was when they would separate the adults and the kids. The facilitators would teach us communication techniques. For example, it’s important to thank your children for doing the small things and point out the good things that they’re doing. And in the other room they were telling our children, “Your parents are going to be thanking you when you do good things like tie your shoes or brush your teeth,” so then it didn’t feel weird when we went
Before Family First, I just let my kids play with one another. I was drowning in my own stuff, and I didn’t know what true parenting was. I didn’t have skills passed on to me by my parents. I was just kind of surviving, and my sons were just kind of surviving in the same space. After Family First, I knew how to pay attention to my kids and help them. And I knew how to parent my daughter when she came along a few years later.
I’m so glad that Youth First is here and that the Family First program is still growing and thriving. I think it should be something everybody gets to experience, because no family has all of the skills that they need to be the best they can be. I love the education that it gives both the child and the parents.
Congratulations, Youth First! Thank you for making families stronger for 25 years!
HOLLY BITTNER
Youth First Success Story
helped me see that I could have a relationship with my mom again. She bridged the gap and became a person I could lean on for advice during my parents’ divorce.
Twelve years ago I was in the 7th grade, and my parents went through a divorce. I was angry with my mom. During that time it was very hard for me to find outlets to express what I was going through and the type of emotions I was feeling.
It was suggested that I talk with the Youth First Social Worker at my school, and that was the first time I was exposed to what Youth First was all about. The Youth First Social Worker let me know that her office was a safe place to express what I was going through. After I sat down with her, I immediately knew I could trust her. She was there to listen and help me.
After having one-on-one sessions for a few months, she thought it was a good idea to bring my mom in. My mom and I had not talked for several months, but the Youth First Social Worker had given me a journal for writing down my feelings to communicate with my mom. This was the start to renewing our mother/daughter relationship. We continued meeting during my 7th grade year and into my 8th grade year. The social worker
She was a smiling face in that dark time, that listening ear. There were days when I was just in tears in her office. There were also times of laughter and anger. But when I walked into her office, she just allowed me to step into what I was feeling and not bury it. I knew I would be received with gentleness, unconditional love, and a gracious heart.
When my mom came in, she was received in the same way – with a bright, warm smile. I knew nothing would leave those four walls. This counseling setting was the one that worked for us. Being at that critical age, I could have gotten involved with the wrong friend group, drinking, drugs, or an unhealthy relationship, but because of this outlet for my emotions, I could remain true to myself and not get involved with anything like that.
If I didn’t have this experience with a Youth First Social Worker, there is no way I could have the relationship with my mom that I have today. My mom needed to know I had forgiven her so she could forgive herself, and my parents were able to eventually get remarried to each other.
Today I am 25 years old and volunteer for organizations like Youth First that helped me and so many other kids. Giving back and servant discipleship is very important to me.
Congratulations, Youth First, on 25 years of supporting and restoring kids and also reconnecting them with their families!
