California Youth Services

The mission of California Youth Services (CYS) is to provide education, assessment, crisis intervention and counseling that assist families to address life’s challenges related to substance abuse, academic challenges, behavioral and mental health struggles.

While CYS has only existed as its own nonprofit entity since 2011, our history goes back to 2002 when current Executive Director Margie Diaz worked with County divisions and doctors to offer the Juvenile Alcohol & Drug Education (JADE) Program. Over the next several years, CYS grew into a fiscally sponsored project of the Boys & Girls Club of Tustin, adding juvenile delinquency prevention and intervention, as well as counseling services for at-risk youth. CYS also began partnering with school districts to offer similar programs at schools for students. While these expansions maintained clear focus on the needs of at-risk youth, CYS realized that many clients were returning for services well into college, necessitating an expansion of its primary target ages of 12 to 17. Also, youth who were coming to CYS programs often faced a host of other mental health and behavioral needs. To address these issues, in 2010, CYS established a counseling center open to youth and community members of any age. During that year, attendance at CYS programs grew 20%, and demand has continued to grow. Since 2010, CYS has served more than 100,000 youth, parents, and community members through prevention and intervention education, school-based programs, its Pathways Community Counseling Center, and community outreach. Today, CYS is a multi-service 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization impacting more than 10,000 individuals each year through offices in Laguna Hills and Tustin and several program sites across Orange County. Our staff work not only with youth at risk for substance abuse and delinquent behavior, but also with individuals and families in need of mental health services. Services include the following programs offered in English and Spanish:
Juvenile Alcohol & Drug Education (JADE), DECISIONS, and several Orange County school district programs such as Project Intervention and New Beginning, CYS offers drug testing, a Collegiate Drug & Alcohol Program (C-DAP) adapted for college campuses, and Pathways Community Counseling Center. CYS also conducts outreach seminars as requested by school administration, as well as community education/prevention forums in collaboration with other agencies and organizations.

CYS’s top accomplishment in the past year is the new partnership with Irvine Unified School District. The top priorities that CYS will focus on this year is to provide continued leadership in providing pre-, mid-, post-crisis services by increasing community collaborations, increase level of support through robust donor campaigns and partnerships with strong foundations, provide a 25% increase in program assistance to families in need, implement an outreach campaign to families to provide resources and safety nets.

The top pressing needs include seeking funding to provide no-to low cost services for individuals needing a comprehensive substance abuse prevention program, unrestricted funding for ever increasing operational costs, provide effective messaging to the community for awareness of CYS programs and services, maintaining a $150,000 reserve for our financial and future stability, and updating much needed infrastructure, such as computers, laptops, and other operational equipment. 

CYS proudly serves residents living in Orange County as well as surrounding areas.

2022 marks 18 years of California Youth Services (CYS) and I am very proud of our accomplishments and am honored to be a part of it.. Prior to that, CYS was called by its pioneer program: JADE. Now it is known as a top leader in providing substance abuse prevention, education, and intervention in Orange County. As I reflect upon years, what makes me the most proud is the collaborative relationships we developed in Orange County with the many schools and school districts, law enforcement agencies, community members, universities, and other non-profits to combat a variety of issues that children, teens, individuals, and families face. We are in the business of helping people and what I would like everyone to know, is that through our substance abuse prevention efforts, we discovered many issues, seen and not seen, are significantly related. These issues are major problems that can affect mental health, overall well-being, behavior, and academic success. To address these issues, we developed high quality, effective programs, such as Pathways Community Counseling Center (our mental health program to prevent depression, truancy, bullying, self esteem issues, relationship problems, grief and loss, etc.). The Pathways website, www.cyspathways.org, was created to point out that the mental health services we provide care for people of all ages and all issues. We have our substance abuse programs such as JADE, school-based programs, drug testing, and Community Outreach. We are working on bringing back our legal awareness DECISIONS program for first time youth offenders. This program was on hold during the pandemic and continues to be on hold due to the location in the OC Jail that it was conducted. Overall, there are many factors in helping people navigate these tough years and CYS is here to make sure they are supported, cared for, and have a place to turn whenever there is a crisis. On a last note, I want to take this time to thank all the non-profits out there doing good and all the partners, supporters, and donors of CYS. All of us working together in Orange County not only strengthens our bond, but it keeps our most vulnerable safe. Many Blessings,  Margie Diaz, LCSW Executive Director