Youth Service Bureaus

About Us

Since 1980, the Youth Service Bureaus (YSB) has provided a continuum of services to help families address the challenges of growing up.

We are the community mental health arm of Urban Services YMCA, specializing in counseling for youth and families, crisis intervention, prevention programs for at-risk youth, parent education and support, truancy prevention, and community resources linkage services.

Our Programs

We work in over 50 schools across San Mateo and San Francisco counties, providing on-site counseling and assessment, crisis intervention, on-campus violence prevention, and adolescent life skills/support groups. In San Francisco, we work throughout the city on school campuses with permanent services offered in 11 of those sites.

We work as a therapeutic partnership with the San Mateo Department of Probation, providing diversion counseling for first-time juvenile offenders, alternatives to incarceration, and re-entry programs for youth in the juvenile justice system. In San Francisco, we offer intensive clinical case management for probation-involved youth.

We are a clinical training center for Trainees and Interns working toward licensure in their professional fields of Social Work and Marriage & Family Therapy. Annually, we train more than 25 graduate students.

Youth Service Bureau Locations

YSB Workforce Development – Traineeship Program for Mental Health Professionals and Clinicians

Are You Considering A Career in Therapy?

The Youth Service Bureau Training Program has been in existence since 1980. We offer an intensive training program that supports, nurtures, and trains new clinicians or pre-licensed therapists.

Program Information

Our Traineeship program offers flexible on-site school-based hours at elementary, middle, and high schools in San Francisco, in a friendly and supportive atmosphere.

You’ll receive training in diagnosis, Medi-Cal documentation and billing, treatment planning, and administering comprehensive strengths-based psychosocial assessments

Our experienced staff provides stellar supervision and training. Group and individual supervision are conducted weekly, as are trainings which vary in topic throughout the year and become more specialized as the school year progresses.

We offer opportunities to provide individual, group, and family therapy.

As a trainee, you’ll gain everything you need to be an impressive contender for employment in San Francisco’s community health agencies, boasting a clinical ID with the county, a working knowledge of the Medi-Cal system and the city’s Avatar database, and key experience employers regularly look for.