MHAPBC partners with StandFirm Outreach and Dads on Duty to provide youth mental health support in Palm Beach County’s western Glades region. Our primary focus is at-risk boys and young men with mental health challenges who need support, structure, and male role models to guide them toward bright, healthy futures.

Mentorship, behavior coaching, and community service are the core of StandFirm Outreach. We have a winning mentality where the words “I can’t” are not in our vocabulary. Male role models from the Glades provide positive reinforcement to the region’s youth and students at Crossroads Academy in Belle Glade, helping them discover their gifts and talents, who they are, and who they can become. They practice their skills and learned behaviors by giving back to the community serving homeless individuals and addressing hunger.

StandFirm Outreach is a trained partner of Dads on Duty, founded in Shreveport, Louisiana, as a Black-father-led violence intervention and mentoring program. Studies show that boys and young men of color without fathers can suffer from lower self-esteem, acting out from a place of hurt or anger, poorer academic performance, and substance use. “Dads”—fathers of youth at Crossroads Academy and positive male role models from the community—fill the void left by a father’s absence, providing a positive male influence and a bond that becomes the foundation for youth to love themselves and others, and become the men they are meant to be.

Dads establish a consistent presence on campus and interact informally with students, with an emphasis on arrival and dismissal. They create a stable environment and calm potentially volatile interactions. Youth identified as needing special support are engaged in planting and maintaining trees on school campus, attending college tours, building floats for local parades, participating in archery and gardening clubs, and gaining exposure to local tradespeople. All youth are supported on their journeys to flourish and reach their full potential, both in and outside of school.