Youth & Family Department at BFL
DEAR FRIENDS,
BFL touches the lives of more children than any agency in the St. Louis region. We served over 9,000 children last year. Connor and her team are “soldiers for youth,” fighting to love and support them; fighting all the opposing forces like poverty, drugs and violence that are working to steal their souls and steal their joys and hopes. Our goal is to produce well-rounded, educated, empowered and employed people.
Marquette King-Connor
Vice President of Youth, Family, & Clinical Services
Youth, Family, & Clinical Services Leadership
Youth & Family Programs
Viking Quest, After-School Enrichment Program
The Normandy Viking Quest/21st Century After-School Enrichment Program is free-of-charge and open to students in the Normandy School Collaborative. 21st Century provides a rich holistic after-school experience that is designed to enhance academic achievement. The program is funded by DESE 21st Century Community Learning Centers and is administered in cooperation with various community partners.
America Scores St. Louis
A BFL initiative seeks to empower students in urban communities using soccer, writing, creative expression, and service learning. With teamwork as the unifying value, America SCORES St. Louis inspires youth to lead healthy lifestyles, be engaged students, and become agents of change in their communities.
Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)
ACFP provides aid to child and adult care institutions and family or group day care homes for the provision of nutritious foods that contribute to the wellness, healthy growth, and development of young children and the health and wellness of older adults and chronically impaired disabled persons.
Through CACFP, more than 4.2 million children and 130,000 adults receive nutritious meals and snacks daily as part of their daycare.
Students who participate in the Youth Passport to the Future, the Normandy afterschool program, and BFL afterschool and summer programs receive hot, Nutritious meals administered
by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (MDHSS) and funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
KUUMBA YOUTH PERFORMANCE ENSEMBLE - K Y P E -
Better Family Life's Kuumba Youth Performance Ensemble (KYPE) comprises youth and young adults aged 5-25 who travel throughout the region as ambassadors for Africa's artistic and cultural heritage and the African Diaspora. Socially relevant and entertaining productions are exhibited through dance, drama, music, and poetry under the direction of Vivian Watt. KYPE is a component of Better Family Life's Youth, Family and Clinical Services Department, and its the performance branch of the Youth Passport to the Future After School Program (YPTF). As a component of the YPTF after-school program, students train throughout the week in the performance genres of dance, drama, poetry, vocal music, and African Drumming while receiving homework assistance, hot, nutritious meals, tobacco alcohol, and other drum prevention classes, computer literacy, intramural sports and much more.
Teen Pregnancy Prevention (Programs)
The program serves youth twelve thru eighteen years of age. Students attend the program Monday thru Thursday either in school or in a community based after school program. The goals of the program are to 1.) reduce teen pregnancy and 2.) reduce sexually transmitted diseases/infections among teens. Funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Adolescent Health, BFL serves 2,000 youth from middle to high school.
Wellness and Clinical Services
This program is an intervention program designed to respond to at-risk clients' mental and physical health challenges. The department comprises licensed psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, and provisionally licensed mental health professionals offering counseling, crisis intervention, and clinical case management to youth, adults, and families. The program is funded by the St. Louis County Children's Service Fund and the Missouri Work Assistance program.
YOUTH LEADERSHIP ACADEMY
Better Family Life's Youth Leadership Academy (YLA) builds the leadership skills and capacity of St. Louis Youth to weigh in on policies that impact their daily lives as a youth in our community.
The Youth Leadership Academy aims to train youth in critical leadership competencies which will prepare them to work effectively with key stakeholders. Children are better equipped to address our city's most significant challenges through experiential learning opportunities, inquiry skills, and strategic communication.
In addition to the leadership training, your child will also get a chance to participate in activities such as the Teen Pregnancy and STD/HIV Prevention training, field trips around St. Louis, Dance and Drama courses, Swimming, Soccer, Basketball games, local college fairs, and HBCU tours.
Youth & Family Partners
- Office of Adolescent Health, Family and Youth Services Bureau
- St. Louis County Children’s Service Fund
- Missouri Family Services Department
- St. Louis Mental Health Board
- Missouri Family Services Department
- Missouri Child Care Division (State Licensing)
- Dana Brown Foundation
- MO Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
- Missouri Foundation for Health,
- America Scores Affiliate,
- St. Louis Agency for Training and Employment (SLATE)
- United Way