Hand Up Homes for Youth, Inc. (HUHFY) has been serving adolescents and families in Reno, Nevada since 2002.  HUHFY expanded services include a full continuum of care for youth at-risk for a higher level of care or youth stepping down in care from residential treatment or a group home-setting. 

HUHFY services include:

Hand Up Homes For Youth, Inc. (Therapeutic Group Home):

Hand Up Homes for Youth’s therapeutic group home is a 12-bed program designed for sexually abusive males, ages 12 to 18.  Our therapeutic group home setting provides intensive clinical and experiential services for youth and their families including psychosocial rehabilitation (PSR), basic skills training (BST), individual therapy, offense specific group therapy, family therapy, family night, equine assisted therapy, on-site states approved academics, and child and family team meetings.  With our small size and family-style setting, we are able to offer individualized treatment to clients with a wide-variety of needs, including developmental delays, severe emotional disturbance (SED), and behavioral management issues. 

Hand in Hand Behavioral Health (Day Treatment Program/Outpatient Treatment):

Hand in Hand Behavioral Health provides outpatient treatment for conduct disorder youth with an Axis I DSM-IV-R diagnosis.  Our day treatment facility offers skill-based psychosocial rehabilitation groups (PSR) and basic skills training (BST).  Goals of these services include: emotional regulation and consequential thinking, empathy building, social skills development, effective communication, problem solving, self-care skills, goal attainment, sex education, cultural competency, anger management, stress management, 12 step and A-lateen groups, on-site state approved academics, and equine assisted learning.   In addition our outpatient program provides individual and family therapy.

Equine Assisted Learning

Also lending to our program’s success is our growing animal-assisted therapy component.  Through interaction with animals and participation in chores, residents are able to develop responsibility, a good work ethic, and care and concern for others.  In animal-assisted therapy sessions, clients learn empathy, appropriate boundaries, healthy relationship building, assertive communication, emotional regulation, and how to use and respond to body language cues.  Many clients who struggle with traditional styles of learning can make astounding breakthroughs by working experientially with animals.

Educational Services

Academic services are provided in both our therapeutic group home and day treatment facility.  Our on-site school is staffed to handle the various educational needs of our clients, enabling them to experience success in school, many for the first time.  We have found that many clients who previously struggled in larger placements are able to succeed in our model.  Our educational services provide smaller class sizes, A+ curriculum that is state approved and meets high school diploma requirements, individual instruction, credit recovery program, line of sight staff supervision, and offers individual education plan (IEP) services.