Mentors and Mentees from ARCHS' Partnership with the MO Division of Youth Services and Fathers' Support Center pose with NBA superstar and St. Louis native Larry Hughes at a celebration luncheon on May 21.ARCHS' Partnership with the MO Division of Youth Services honored 15 area teenagers, their mentors, and parents at a celebration luncheon on May 21 at the Hilton St. Louis Airport Hotel. "Youth Striving For Change: A Celebration of Progress and Success gave special recognition to to those in attendance for voluntarily participating in the mentoring program in partnership with Fathers' Support Center.

The ARCHS' partnership provides adult mentors to juvenile offenders associated with the Missouri Division of Youth Services. NBA superstar and St. Louis native Larry Hughes was the keynote speaker for the event.

In the Spring of 2010, The Missouri Department of Social Services, Division of Youth Services' selected ARCHS to deliver its Community Mentoring Services Program (CMSP) to youth in the Greater St. Louis area.

The Missouri Department of Social Services, Division of Youth Services' (DYS) mission is clear: to protect communities from juvenile offenders in the Division's care and custody and to provide appropriate services to youth and their families.

The message may seem complex to some in a nation where recidivism amongst troubled youth is on the rise, and where those incarcerated spend their time served in boot camp atmospheres behind bars and surrounded by guards.

But this is not the case in Missouri where DYS has chosen to address the fundamental reasons why the delinquent behavior occurred in the first place.

In the Spring of 2010, DYS selected ARCHS to deliver its Community Mentoring Services Program (CMSP) to youth in the Greater St. Louis area. CMSP's goals are to decrease social isolation and exclusion, increase safety, increase stability and increase the control of choices and the meaningful use of mainstream resources. Simply put, help transform troubled youth into productive citizens and in return make positive changes in a community.

"ARCHS has outstanding connections with both agencies and informal and formal natural support networks, and a successful track record of managing transition partnerships, such as its experiences with adult (ex-offenders and welfare to work) transitions," said Tim Decker, Missouri's DYS Director. "As far as leveraging resources, we know that when we invest a certain amount, ARCHS will return a greater value and has the ability to monitor outcomes. By our partnering with ARCHS, there is a better chance to get better outcomes. It is sort of like an insurance policy."