Youth Success Center for Prevention and Family Stabilization
One Location for Everything a Young Person and Family Need
Carter's Crew is building the Youth Success Center, a single-location prevention and stabilization hub in Little Rock that connects court-referred and community-referred youth ages 12 to 17 and their families to every service they need, from case navigation and advocacy to recovery connections and an on-site RN. Hence, families no longer have to piece together help across separate, fragmented agencies.
The Challenge They Were Addressing
Pulaski County does not lack services for young people and families touched by substance use. The problem is that those services are siloed and fragmented, and families often do not know where to go. A family might arrive at one agency for a single need and learn they actually need three or four other things: parenting classes, a food pantry, help getting to court, and Medicaid enrollment so a child can access counseling. Each of those needs lives in a different place, with its own intake and schedule. Transportation, time, and the sheer difficulty of working through multiple systems wear families down until many give up.
Carter's Crew had been working in central Arkansas since 2017, preventing youth involvement in substance use and opioid misuse and steering young people away from the justice system. Most of the families it serves are referred by judges, Families in Need of Services officers, probation officers, the prosecuting attorney, the police department, and alternative schools, with the rest coming from the community. The organization repeatedly saw that the underlying drivers of justice involvement and substance use were the same, and that no single place existed where a family could walk in and get everything addressed at once.
The idea grew directly from the founder's own life. Amber Govan came to this work with lived experience: people in her community changed the trajectory of her life and her family's life. She reasoned that if one location had existed where her mother could have brought her and gotten all the services they needed in one place, her own path might have gone differently. The Youth Success Center was designed to be that one place, the first prevention, education, and stabilization hub of its kind in Arkansas.
What They Built
Carter's Crew is renovating a 27,000-square-foot former elementary school on 10 acres of land to house the Youth Success Center. The building sits in a prime location near the Little Rock airport and the Little Rock Port, close to the interstate, which makes it easy to get young people in and out and puts the program near large employers interested in workforce partnerships. The purchase price was $1,035,000, but the sellers gave a $535,000 charitable contribution toward the purchase, so Carter's Crew paid $500,000 in cash and entered the project with more than $535,000 in equity.
The Center is built on a clear operating principle. Every service a young person or family could need is provided in one location, and any service Carter's Crew does not provide directly is delivered on-site by a partner organization or through referral. As the founder puts it, Carter's Crew is the connector of services to the community, not the sole provider of all of them. A family can come to one place for case navigation, court advocacy, help working through the Department of Human Services and Medicaid enrollment, connection to a recovery center, or a meeting with an RN. Vans are available to transport families so that a lack of transportation is not a barrier to getting help.
The model carries forward the prevention education work that earned Carter's Crew its first opioid award in 2024. The organization does not recruit participants. Every young person who comes to Carter's Crew arrives as a referral from a partner or a community member, and participation is voluntary. That first award funded after-school prevention education and sessions delivered inside local universities and junior colleges, reaching more than 5,000 young people and exceeding the program's milestones.
A separate wing of the property is dedicated to professional development for law enforcement, court staff, and direct care professionals, covering trends in opioid and substance use and how to get better outcomes from young people with behavior issues. The sustainability plan adds components over time, including short-term residential cottages and a workforce learning lab where young people can try skilled trades such as welding and build a career pathway. Even before the building opens, Carter's Crew is hosting community events on the property, including a family field day with snow cones, popcorn, donated clothing, food, and games, to build trust with neighbors and show that the Center is an asset to the community.
Rather than creating another stand-alone program, Carter's Crew developed an integrated, community-based model that brings prevention education, family stabilization, justice diversion, peer support, recovery navigation, workforce development, professional training, and cross-sector partnerships together through a single, coordinated entry point. Serving as the central hub, Carter's Crew connects individuals and families to the services they need while coordinating communication among providers and reducing barriers to access. The model was designed through lived experience and shaped by years of serving thousands of youth and families, along with extensive collaboration with more than 100 community partners. Instead of asking families to navigate a fragmented system on their own, Carter's Crew created a coordinated pathway that streamlines access to prevention, treatment, recovery, and supportive services.
Key Program Components
Who You Need at the Table
What made a willing partner essential vs. optional?
What separates an essential partner from a helpful one is not the size of the organization; it is whether the relationship makes the work possible at all. Carter's Crew has more than 103 community partners, and the founder is clear that each brings something to the table. The organization could not do what it does without them. Because Carter's Crew does not recruit, the referring partners are the front door of the entire program. Without judges, Families in Need of Services officers, probation, schools, and the police department sending young people to Carter's Crew, the numbers it reaches would not be possible.
Those relationships were built over years, not bought. When Carter's Crew launches a new program or curriculum in a university, college, high school, or middle school, there is no pushback; the only question is what day and time to come in. The founder is direct that it is not the money that makes the work succeed, it is the trust of the community and the relationships with the people in it. Schools such as Graduate Arkansas are essential because most of the young people served are behind in school and at risk during after-school hours, which are peak times for delinquency, and because the partnership meets a need that Carter's Crew cannot meet alone.
Budget Breakdown
What is the minimum viable budget to replicate this?
The founder's own advice points to a minimum viable version that costs almost nothing to start. Working with a state youth-services agency that operated in the negative, she built coalitions in a rural southern Arkansas judicial district on a zero-dollar budget. The first move was not spending money; it was bringing people together and showing them local data. For a county with limited funds, the floor is relationships and a clear read of the local need, not a building. A physical hub like the Youth Success Center depends on location and available funds. Still, the connector model and the relationship that drives it can begin with no capital at all.
What Worked and Why
Specific decisions or design features that drove success
Centralizing services in one location is the design choice at the heart of the model. Instead of sending a family to five places for parenting classes, court advocacy, Medicaid enrollment, and counseling, the Youth Success Center brings those services under one roof, or connects the family to a partner who provides them, so people do not give up partway through a maze of separate systems. Removing barriers, including transportation through program vans, is built into the design rather than added later.
Building on relationships rather than money is what has allowed prevention education to reach more than 5,000 young people. Because Carter's Crew had worked in the community for years and held more than 103 partnerships, launching a new program meant only agreeing on dates, not overcoming resistance. The founder is explicit that the community's trust, not the size of the grant, is what made the work succeed and allowed the program to exceed its milestones.
Choosing the second property rather than fighting for the first saved time and goodwill. The first site drew strong neighborhood opposition and would have required a contested city commission vote that the team judged unlikely to pass. Rather than spend more months on an uncertain outcome, Carter's Crew moved to a viable second location near the airport and the Little Rock Port, where neighbors actively want the program present.
Building community trust before the doors open is a deliberate strategy. Carter's Crew is hosting a community field day on the property with food, games, snow cones, and a donation table, with young people from the program serving neighbors. Hence, the community sees that the Center is an asset and that young people are not arriving in shackles, contrary to the rumors raised at the first site. Being a good neighbor before launch lays the groundwork for the program's standing once it opens.
Centering lived experience made partners willing to commit. The founder's own story, verified by her public record of projects, persuaded community members and officials to buy in because people closest to the problem are closest to the solution. In one rural district, 13 to 15 people committed to a year of service to the juvenile courts after seeing the data and hearing how change was possible.
Early outcomes and data
More than 5,000 young people were reached through prevention education in 2024 under the first opioid award, exceeding program milestones.
Youth Success Center property acquired: a 27,000-square-foot former elementary school on 10 acres, entered with more than $535,000 in equity.
Renovation of the Youth Success Center is underway during Year 1.
Community trust-building events on the property are scheduled to launch before the building opens, including a family field day.
Active ongoing programming with after-school and summer programs and law enforcement youth programs, delivered by a certified peer support specialist.
Service partnerships spanning courts, schools, police, recovery centers, and more than 103 community partners.
Youth Success Center service projections and outcome tracking:
Youth served: 2000-2500 annually
Caregiver support: 300 annually
Training for Frontline professionals: 100-150 annually
Lessons Learned
Lead with relationships and trust, not dollars. The trust Carter's Crew built over the years, not the size of any grant, is what allowed it to launch programs without pushback and exceed its milestones. Relationships are the foundation on which everything else stands.
Put people with lived experience at the center. Those closest to the problem are closest to the solution. The founder's own story and public record persuaded partners and officials to commit, and lived experience belongs in the design of the work, not on its margins.
Un-silo the services families need. Fragmentation, not a lack of services, is what defeats families. A single location that connects all necessary services, with transportation provided, removes the barriers that cause people to give up.
Be a good neighbor before you open. Building community trust ahead of launch, through events and visible presence, gives a new facility standing on day one and counters rumors about who it serves.
Know when to change course on a site. When the first property drew opposition and an uncertain city vote, moving to a viable second location saved months and landed the program in a place where neighbors wanted it. Do not keep spending time on a fight you are unlikely to win.