Arkansas – The Youth Advocate Programs (YAP®), Inc. Arkansas Behavioral Health team is not surprised to learn that LaKeitha moved past a time of trouble and crisis to put her life on a positive path.
“There are certain students you encounter in life who leave a lasting impression – not simply because of their accomplishments, but because of their strength and resilience of their spirt,” said YAP® Arkansas Behavioral Health Program Assistant Director Magigor Love. “Lakeitha is one of those students who overcame personal, behavioral, and mental health challenges.”
Love worked with Lakeitha when she was referred to YAP® Arkansas’ BH program that provided her with wraparound tools connecting her to economical, emotional and educational support.
“Facing ongoing family and interpersonal conflict with peers, noncompliance with curfew, aggression and fighting, jail, ankle monitors….[Lakeitha] could have easily allowed circumstances to dictate the outcome of her life. Instead, Lakeitha made a powerful and deeply personal choice to return to school,” Love added. “She completed her high school education at age 16.”
Love wrote a letter of recommendation for Lakeitha, who received a scholarship through YAP®’s Tom Jeffers Endowment Fund for Continuing Education. She plans to attend cosmetology school in August.
The special scholarship is funded by donors, most of whom are YAP® employees and Board of Directors members. Recipients are eligible to apply for and receive the scholarship annually. The award is $1,500 for college or trade school tuition, fees or supplies, or a laptop computer.
“The scholarship will help me pay or my school expenses, supplies, and also housing,” Lakeitha wrote in her scholarship essay. “My plans are to stay focused and graduate from cosmetology [school] and eventually own a business one day.”
Referred to YAP® through her probation officer, Lakeitha wrote that she was getting into trouble in school by fighting, leaving school without permission, and not doing her work. Additionally, she said she would miss curfews, not listening to her mother, and failed a drug test.
YAP® Arkansas uses the Family Centered Treatment method by providing in-home family therapy and community care. FCT also supports YAP®’s wraparound approach to working with youth and their families to set them up for success. YAP® is a national nonprofit that partners with youth justice, child welfare, education, mental health, and other public systems to deliver its community-based services as a safer, more-effective alternative to placing youth in trouble or crisis in corrections and residential treatment facilities.
Lakeitha said learned a lot from YAP® and could not have persevered without the love of her mother.
“I benefited from the program by listening when we talked about ways to control my anger, and how I should walk away and not make bad decisions,” she added.
Love is excited about Lakeitha’s future.
“With the support of this scholarship, I am confident that Lakeitha will continue to achieve, grow, and inspire,” Love wrote. “More importantly, she will carry forward resilience, using her story and strength to uplift others who may still be searching for their own path. Supporting her is not only an acknowledgment of how far she has come—it is an investment in the meaningful impact she is destined to make.”
YAP® Arkansas serves Benton, Carroll, Clark, Columbia, Crawford, Franklin, Hempstead, Howard, Johnson, Lafayette, Little River, Logan, Madison, Miller, Nevada, Ouachita, Polk, Pope, Scott, Sebastian, Sevier, Union, and Washington counties
For more information on YAP®, visit yapinc.org. To donate to the Endowment Fund, click here.
