Happy September, and may the temps feel more like September soon!!
This fall we are fully embracing our new name, Families and Youth of Idaho! You have been seeing our new logo for over a year now. I will remind you that the Idaho Federation of Families still exists as the parent organization of FYIdaho, but our family and youth services are all run under FYIdaho, which is a registered entity of the Idaho Federation of Families. Communications regarding our family and youth work will be coming from FYIdaho.org exclusively moving forward. We will continue to run Youth MOVE Idaho (a Chapter of Youth MOVE National) under FYIdaho, and we remain the Idaho Chapter of the National Federation of Families for Children’s Mental Health.
What motivated this name change was twofold:
1. The initials "IFF" are also associated with another Idaho organization and we feel it is very important to differentiate ourselves. There are other FYI organizations nationally and within Idaho, but none that we are concerned about being confused with, especially since we are the only FYIdaho.
2. Families and Youth of Idaho speaks to the evolution of our organization. Our future will continue to focus on supporting families and youth experiencing mental illness, and we are evolving to be a “home”, voice and support for the family and youth peer support workforce in Idaho. The mental health peer workforce provides evidence-based support to both families and youth. They are an important provider in any mental health system, and they become critically important where there is a clinician shortage and where families and youth are experiencing gaps in services.
We look forward to sharing more about our peer support work in the coming weeks and months.