Youth Bridge Inc., serving the at-risk youth population of eight counties in Northwest Arkansas, has received notification that it has been accredited by the Council on Accreditation (COA), according to an announcement made by Scott Linebaugh, Executive Director of the organization.

At Youth Bridge’s administrative offices in Fayetteville, Linebaugh spoke of the long process of gaining the accreditation, “It is a standard of excellence that we are proud to have achieved.”

The process of accreditation, necessary for the providing of some services such as those covered by Medicaid, involved an in-depth examination of the organization’s compliance with best practice standards. This included a review of organizational standards involving human resources, financial and risk management, continuous quality improvement as well as thirty-nine service standards.

The service standards address a full array of child, family and behavioral healthcare services including financial and debt management, employee assistance programs, mental health counseling, substance abuse treatment, foster care, health service areas and other service areas.

Youth Bridge has been providing services in Northwest Arkansas since 1963. They now have two emergency shelters, a therapeutic group home for adjudicated males, the state’s first Division of Youth Services (DYS) residential substance abuse treatment center for teens, and a transitional living program for homeless young adults.

In addition to counseling centers in Mountain Home, Harrison, Centerton and Fayetteville, Youth Bridge provides an “Aftercare” reintegration plan for clients who have completed a DYS mandated program, helping them back into society.

Linebaugh stated, “We worked with more than 4,300 youth and provided them more than 550,000 hours of services last year- and the need continues to expand. With the rapid escalation in demand for our services have come some real challenges. We are gratified with the validation of our efforts that this accreditation from COA brings to us.”