This is a very special year for North American Family Institute. This fall we will celebrate our thirty-fifth anniversary as a human services organization. We have come a long way since establishing our first program in 1974, which was one of America's first outreach and tracking programs for adjudicated youth. Today we operate nearly 100 programs in ten states and have developed a national reputation for creating highly innovative, normative environments that help tens of thousands of individuals and families each year. Every day, our dedicated employees go to work in residential programs, group homes, and community-based programs from Maine to Florida. Before the day ends, we will have served over 1,200 youth, adults and families.

As a result of our fine work, NAFI/NFI (the acronym stands for North American Family Institute and its subsidiaries, NFI Massachusetts, NFI Vermont, NFI North and NAFI Connecticut) has been praised by Congress for our gender responsive programming and for our role as a national leader in the wraparound movement, in evidenced-based programming, in trauma-informed behavioral health, and in the specialized care of children with developmental disabilities. In addition, we have been featured in the New York Times for our prevention and intervention programs for high risk teenagers. And we are excited to report that NAFI/NFI recently launched a new, independent venture, America's first captive insurance program for human services providers, called The Captive Advantage.

NAFI/NFI has withstood hard economic times and political challenges. We have stayed true to our mission of helping people learn and grow to better their lives and the world around them.

We hope you will enjoy reading our first newsletter and those to come in the months ahead!

Best regards,

Dr. Yitzhak Bakal, President

Five years ago, the Youth & Police Initiative (YPI) began as a one day training to help Baltimore Police Academy recruits to talk to inner city youth. The goal was to reduce arrests and violence. Today, NAFI/NFI trainers offer YPI to street cops and young people in several northeastern cities, including Boston, Massachusetts, Hartford, Connecticut and White Plains, New York.

Throughout its expansion, YPI has become renowned for helping delinquent youth and seasoned officers break down stereotypes, participate in team building, role play and form lasting relationships. In White Plains, YPI has helped reduce crime by 40% among at-risk youth living in the city's public housing projects. In all communities participating in YPI, negative contacts between youth and police have been drastically lowered.

YPI's growing success has been profiled in the New York Times, the White Plains Times, the Boston Herald and Police Chief Magazine. It has also been praised by local police officials, including Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis and Hartford Police Chief Neil Drief. Recently, Chief Drief observed a YPI where many of the youth participants live in poverty and have been affiliated with gangs.

Yet, in the YPI training session, Chief Drief watched the youth engage for hours with perfect comportment as they connected with Hartford police officers. "I'm surprised and impressed by the relationships between kids and cops that have come out of YPI," he said. "It's nothing short of a miracle."

In late 2008, after nearly 20 years of continuous operation, NAFI/NFI officially closed the Thomas O'Farrell Youth Center (TOYC) to launch a large-scale Multisystemic Therapy (MST) program. MST is nationally celebrated for its evidence-based approach to helping adjudicated youth. The new MST program will serve hundreds of teenagers and their families throughout the State of Maryland each year. To commemorate the closing of TOYC, 50 guests convened in Baltimore to reflect on the extensive accomplishments of the treatment facility during its years of service under NAFI/NFI's stewardship.

Several honored guests addressed the gathered crowd, including Dr. Yitzhak Bakal who highlighted the accomplishments of TOYC’s dedicated staff. Dr. Bakal reflected on the many youth who had arrived with "broken spirits" but then discovered their strength and innate abilities to learn and grow in a place that provided security, caring, respect and trust. He also pointed out that TOYC had been named a "model" program in the early 1990s by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) for "providing youth with opportunities to take time out from a life of escalating violence to gain a second chance in acquiring new footing."

As Dr. Bakal concluded his speech, he stated that we can celebrate that the closing of TOYC is giving birth to a family-based MST program that will offer care in progressive, less restrictive ways. He also stated that this change satisfies the mission of both the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services and of NAFI/NFI. He urged all to depart knowing that TOYC will always be a cornerstone of NAFI/NFI's history and that it has contributed to the development of future of community-based programming.

On a spectacular night this spring, Connecticut’s Stepping Stone Program---one of NAFI/NFI’s largest residential girls’ facilities---hosted an innovative production of William Shakespeare’s classic play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In keeping with the play’s themes of fantasy and metamorphosis, residents and staff transformed their gym into an elegant dinner theater, complete with a professional stage, lights and dining facilities. The neighboring Touchstone program lent a hand as well, supporting the dinner theater with the grand opening of Stone Grill Catering, a vocational education catering program run by students and staff.

On the night of the performance, guests made their way to the lower level of the Stepping Stone School, where they found the school's athletic gymnasium transformed into an elegant dinner theater. The massive new stage dominated the room, ringed neatly with beautifully set tables. Touchstone residents escorted guests to their tables and served dinner with a level of professionalism associated with fine dining. Many guests remarked upon the quality of the food, its tastes and textures.

As dinner concluded, the lights dimmed. The Stepping Stone girls took the stage, to tell Shakespeare’s classic story through the eyes of a teenage girl. Hermia, Demetrius and all the rest---dressed in contemporary clothing and using modern mannerisms---mesmerized the audience. Line after line of rhyming prose, expertly delivered, floated across the room. The girls inhabited their roles with confidence and understanding, having been encouraged to tell the story through the lens of their own experiences. Act by act, the story progressed.

At its conclusion, the audience gave the production a standing ovation. In true NAFI/NFI fashion, everyone ---students, teachers and staff---took a bow, for the spectacular event could only have resulted from the hard work and coordinated effort of the entire team of players.

NAFI/NFI has become a leader in alternative education. We currently operate over 25 licensed schools throughout our ten-state network, providing educational services to approximately 500 youth each day. For more information on our alternative schools, please see our website.