Learning, Laughing & Connecting: A Day at the YSB

At the Youth Service Bureau of Jay County, we believe that doing meaningful work starts with having a strong, connected, and supported team. That is why we hold three agency-wide meetings each year—not just to share information, but to learn together, build relationships, celebrate our team, and, most importantly, have some fun!

Our most recent agency meeting was a great example of what makes working at the YSB special.

Starting the Day Together

We began the day the way we typically do with staff check-ins and agency updates. These regular opportunities to connect help everyone stay informed about what is happening throughout the agency and give staff from different programs a chance to hear what is going on with coworkers.

Then it was time to get everyone moving with Employee Scavenger Hunt Bingo.

Staff were given bingo cards filled with different statements and challenges. The goal was to move around the room and find coworkers who could initial the squares that applied to them. It was a simple activity, but it quickly had people talking, laughing, and learning things about coworkers they may not normally interact with.

Once someone achieved a bingo, their card was entered into a drawing for a prize. Of course, a little friendly competition never hurts!

Practical AI for Daily Impact

After the fun, it was time to learn.

We were excited to have Matt Weaver join us to present “Practical AI for Daily Impact.” The training generated some great conversation about how artificial intelligence can be used to make our work more efficient, what kinds of tasks AI can assist with, and—just as importantly—where the boundaries are.

Staff had the opportunity to ask questions, share ideas, and think about practical ways AI could potentially benefit their daily work. It was a great reminder that professional development isn’t always about learning something completely new—it can also be about learning how to use new tools responsibly and effectively.

Good Food & Good Company

After a morning of learning and activities, everyone was ready for lunch.

A huge thank you to Dusty Hilfiker for firing up the grill and to Kim Atkinson for taking care of the rest of the food. Lunch was delicious and gave everyone a chance to relax, recharge, and spend some time visiting with coworkers.

Because let’s be honest, good food has a way of making a good meeting even better.

Wellness at the YSB

One of the things we incorporate into our agency meetings is a continued focus on the Eight Dimensions of Wellness. At each meeting, we explore two dimensions and connect them to an interactive activity.

This time, we focused on financial wellness and occupational wellness.

For financial wellness, staff participated in a “Would You Rather” activity that encouraged everyone to think about financial decisions, priorities, and the choices we make with our money.

For occupational wellness, we tackled “Build Your Dream Workday.” Staff had the opportunity to think about what makes a workday enjoyable, productive, meaningful, and sustainable.

These activities weren’t about finding one “right” answer. They were about starting conversations and encouraging staff to think about what contributes to their overall well-being both inside and outside of work.

Teamwork…with a Little Bit of Chaos

We wrapped up the day with a team-building challenge planned by Scott Bissell.

The objective sounded simple: work together to move small plastic eggs from one location to another using nothing more than a small wooden skewer.

Simple, right?

Well…sort of.

What followed was a combination of strategy, communication, teamwork, laughter, and just enough chaos to make it memorable. The pictures from the activity tell the story better than words ever could!

More Than Just a Meeting

By the end of the day, we had accomplished quite a bit. We learned about new technology, talked about wellness, shared a meal, competed in bingo, worked together on a ridiculous egg-moving challenge, and spent time getting to know one another.

But perhaps the most important part of the day was something that can’t really be put on an agenda: connection.

The YSB has staff working across multiple programs, and many employees don’t regularly work alongside everyone else in the agency. Our agency meetings give us an opportunity to change that. They allow new employees to meet coworkers from other programs, learn more about the people they work alongside, and experience the culture of the YSB firsthand.

And that culture matters.

We work in a field that can be challenging and demanding, but we also believe that work can be meaningful, supportive, collaborative, and fun. We want our employees to know that they are part of a team, not just a department or a program.

If you’re looking for a workplace where you can make a difference, continue learning, build relationships, and occasionally spend an afternoon trying to move plastic eggs with a wooden skewer, the YSB might just be the place for you.

We’re proud of the work we do, but we’re equally proud of the people who do it.

That’s the YSB difference.

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Rain Couldn’t Stop the Deakota Ingle Memorial Cruise-In!

Despite the rain, the 2026 Deakota Ingle Memorial Cruise-In was a tremendous success, and the Youth Service Bureau of Jay County (YSB) was incredibly honored to be selected as this year’s beneficiary of the event’s proceeds.

There were some truly impressive vehicles on display, and it was wonderful to see so many people come out to enjoy the evening, support a great cause, and celebrate the memory of Deakota Ingle. Even with Mother Nature providing a little extra challenge, the community’s enthusiasm and generosity certainly didn’t wash away!

Thanks to the incredible support of everyone involved, this year’s event raised more than $1,000 for the YSB. These funds will help us continue our mission of promoting resiliency and assisting children, youth, families, and staff in achieving their greatest potential.

A very special THANK YOU to Brian Taylor for organizing and hosting this wonderful event and for choosing the YSB as this year’s charity beneficiary. We are so grateful for your generosity and commitment to making a difference in our community.

We also want to extend our appreciation to our friends at RU Recovery for their support and involvement, Yergy’s BBQ for generously allowing the event to use their parking lot, and to everyone who brought out a vehicle, attended the cruise-in, made a donation, or simply braved the rain to show their support.

Community support like this means so much to the YSB. Every dollar raised helps us continue providing meaningful services and opportunities to children, youth, and families throughout our community.

Thank you, Brian, RU Recovery, sponsors, the incredible car enthusiasts, and everyone who helped make the 5th Annual Dakota Ingle Memorial Cruise-In a success! We are truly grateful to be part of such a generous and supportive community. 

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From “The White House on the Corner” to a Fresh New Look

For as long as anyone can remember, our residential group home was known around the neighborhood as “the big white house on the corner.” The bright white siding became part of the home’s identity and something many residents, staff, neighbors, and families recognized instantly.

Over the years, the house became more than just a building. It became a place filled with memories, support, laughter, and community. The white exterior stood as a familiar landmark to everyone who passed by.

But after many years, it was time for a change.

Recently, we updated the siding from white to grey, giving the home a completely refreshed appearance while still keeping the same welcoming spirit inside. Although the transformation was a big one, the goal was simple: create a cleaner, more modern look that would continue serving our residents well for years to come.

At first, it felt strange seeing the house without its signature white color. After all, “the big white house on the corner” had become a nickname that stuck for decades. But as the project came together, the new grey siding brought a sense of warmth, calmness, and updated charm that immediately changed the feel of the property in a positive way.

The grey exterior offers a softer and more contemporary appearance while also helping with maintenance and upkeep. It blends beautifully with the landscaping and gives the home a polished, welcoming presence in the neighborhood.

Even though the color has changed, what truly matters has stayed the same. The house continues to be a safe, supportive, and caring home for the people who live there. The memories, relationships, and sense of community inside these walls remain unchanged.

Some neighbors may still affectionately call it “the big white house on the corner,” and honestly, that history will always be part of the home’s story. But now, the house begins a new chapter — one wrapped in shades of grey, while continuing to provide the same warmth and comfort it always has.

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Strikes, Spares, and Team Spirit: A Night of Bowling with Co-Workers at Crown City Lanes in Dunkirk

Team-building activities can sometimes feel forced, but bowling has a way of making everyone loosen up. Maybe it’s the retro vibe, maybe it’s the shared nostalgia, or maybe it’s that none of us are quite as good as we pretend to be. Either way, the awkwardness melted quickly as the first balls rolled down the lanes.

Bowling night opened the door to conversations that rarely happen between meetings. We learned who used to bowl in high school, who secretly hates wearing bowling shoes, and who has a surprising obsession with nacho cheese (spoiler alert, it’s me).

Within minutes, the quietest coworker surprised us with a picture-perfect strike, and suddenly the whole group was cheering like we’d been lifelong teammates. Those personal stories—shared over pizza slices and the sound of pins crashing—helped us connect in a way Slack threads and Zoom calls never could.

By the end of the night, scores were forgotten, but the camaraderie lingered. We left with sore muscles, full stomachs, and a stronger sense of team spirit. Sometimes, all it takes is a lane, a ball, and a few co-workers willing to step outside their daily routines to form memories that make working together even more enjoyable.  When it was time to go, nobody remembered the numbers (thank goodness), but we left with new inside jokes, slightly sore arms, and the kind of chaotic team spirit that can only come from watching your supervisor wear goofy shoes while trying to pick up a spare.

Would we do it again?
Absolutely.
Should we practice first?
Also absolutely.

Supervised Visitation Facility – Grand Opening & Open House

A little over 2 years ago the Youth Service Bureau of Jay County, Inc. (YSB) was fortunate to have the opportunity to apply for funding through the Strengthening Youth Programs in Indiana initiative, a Lilly Endowment project. The YSB was selected to receive 100% of the funding that was requested which included funds to help with employee retention and recruitment, basketball court improvements at our Residential Facility, a new van for the Residential Program, a camera system for security and safety, and the creation of our Supervised Visitation Facility.

I am thrilled to announce our Supervised Visitation Facility is finished and ready to start serving our clients! We will be having an open house to celebrate the opening on September 18, 2025 from 12 pm to 5 pm, including a special ribbon cutting ceremony at 1:30 pm. The address for this event is 603 West Arch Street Portland, Indiana which is our main office. Please enter the event through the east doors of the main office. There will be food and refreshments available.

The creation of the Supervised Visitation Facility came about because of the need for safe, private, and adequate space for supervised visitations. Through our community based contract with the Department of Child Services (DCS) we provide a lot of supervised visitations. Many of these are conducted in the community, which while not ideal, is our only option many times. Community locations are often public places like parks and libraries. These spaces are typically great spaces, but do not provide the privacy that families need for these types of visits. Sometimes, conversations must be had in these visits that could be embarrassing to parents if done in public. Sometimes, there are safety concerns around the location. For example; a park close to a busy street where a young child could run into the street or a public space where someone could show up who has been court ordered not to.

Our new facility provides clients with a safe space as the yard is completely fenced in with a 6 foot high privacy fence. This not only provides the much needed privacy for the client, but also keeps the little children contained within the area while keeping any unwanted visitors out. The supervised visit building provides the same opportunity, but for the entire year. Going to the park is an option in the warm months, but when the weather is bad inside places where kids can run around and be kids during a visit is very limited and with no privacy. Our building provides ample space for kids to run around and play during a visit any time of the year.

The outside space consists of a play set with 3 slides and a climbing wall, swings, balance beams, a climbing turtle, a merry-go-around, a small sandbox, picnic tables, a basketball court, and a walking path. Our inside space includes a comfortable seating area, a basic kitchen area, a basketball goal, toys, and a large wide open area to run and play.

We would like to thank Muhlenkamp Construction, Hatzell Bros. Standing Seam Solutions, Moeller Door and Window, Denny’s Door Company, Fullenkamp Drywall, Bryan Sutton Painting, D & D Plumbing, Heating, and Air Conditioning, Wabash Electric, Gabbard Fencing, KBL, and Serendipity Play Systems for helping to make this dream come to life.

We also want to give a very special thanks to the Lilly Endowment for creating this forward thinking, highly needed, initiative to help improve the lives of our youth!

Please stop by on the 18th of September to see the facility in person and let us tell you more about the work we are doing here at the YSB.

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YSB’s Sidewalk Project Complete!

We are very excited at the YSB for our fresh new sidewalks and our cross walk!

We would like to thank Matt Shauver and the Portland Street Department for their excellent work on repairing our sidewalks. For anyone with a sidewalk in dis-repair I would highly recommend reaching out to the street department and getting on their list for sidewalk repair. It is a great deal for the community as the city covers the labor expense and the property owner only has to pay for materials! Feel free to drive down West Arch Street and check out their work if you are on the fence about moving forward with a sidewalk project. I don’t think you will be disappointed!

We would also like to thank Matt and the Portland City Council for assisting us in putting in a cross walk. This cross-walk runs from our parking lot to the main entrance of our office at 603 West Arch Street. At the YSB we have a number of clients with younger children and having a cross walk at this location creates a much safer space for them to get to our office.

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YSB Sidewalk – 1/3
YSB Sidewalk – 2/3
YSB Sidewalk – 3/3

4th Annual Deakota Engle Memorial Cruise-In

On August 1st Brian Taylor and our friends at RU Recovery in Wells County hosted the 4th annual Deakota Ingle Memorial Cruise-In. The event was held in the parking lot of Yergy’s State Road BBQ in Bluffton, Indiana. It was a fabulous evening! The weather was perfect, the air was filled with great music and the wonderful smell of BBQ, and everywhere you looked there were amazing cars to look at! The YSB was honored to be the recipient of the proceeds from this event which equaled an impressive $750! We were also pleased to be able to send our residential youth for the event. They were a little late in getting there but still enjoyed the music, the cars, and playing some corn-hole. Thank you to all who helped with this event, those in attendance and those who donated. We at the YSB could not do all that we do without the support of the communities we serve.

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Celebrating Joe Boggs’ Term as YSB Board Member

Thank you Joe!

At our board of directors meeting on 5/22/2025 we honored YSB board member Joe Boggs. Joe has been a member of the board since October 2021. Joe has been instrumental in helping to improve the YSB employee wellness culture during his time on the board! Joe was directly involved in the Youth Worker Wellbeing Project which was funded by Eli Lilly and implemented through the Indiana Youth Services Association (IYSA). Joe took time out of his schedule to attend these sessions in Indianapolis with PJ Corwin, Executive Director, and Heidi Bouse, Business Manager. With this project Joe helped to schedule the sessions for employees to learn about the 8 modules of wellness and provided space for this at his church. Joe and some other board members were able to be a part of these sessions. Joe also participated in our mind body medicine skills group alongside 7 other employees, in addition to other YSB wellness trainings along the way. 

Joe has been a “Wellness Champion” for the YSB! 

We cannot thank him enough for all that he has done for the YSB and our community! 

Thank you Joe and good luck with your new assignment in South Bend!

Agency Outing – Escape Room!

For our latest employee wellness initiative – agency outing we checked out the escape rooms at Escape Muncie. We met early that day and had some great food at Amazing Joe’s in addition to celebrating Karla Eberle’s Birthday! Then we proceeded to Escape Muncie where we split up into two teams of 7.  One team consisted of Scott Bissell, Karla Eberle, Hayleigh Fuller, Bri Davis, Ashlyn Maloy, Christy Nel and Marsi Dow. This group took on the mansion escape room. The other team consisted of Dave Milligan, Dawn Milligan, Erika Limbert, Elyse Bost, Kim Atkinson, Heather Hall, and PJ Corwin. They took on the challenge of the classroom escape room. This is clearly a group of pretty smart individuals with some great teamwork skills as both teams successfully escaped their respective rooms with just minutes to spare! All in attendance had a really good time despite some friendly discussions afterwards around which team actually escaped first!

Thank you to Escape Muncie and their staff for a very fun evening!

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Christmas Celebrations!

It brings me great joy to share the story of another Residential groups Christmas experience here at the YSB!

As always our Christmas celebration spans the entire month of December with special recreation activities! The favorite continues to be our Secret Santa activity. Each resident had two staff assigned to them this year. One staff bought them $5 gifts for the 16th and 17th while the other bought them $5 gifts for the 18th and 19th.  On the 19th which was the night of our Residential Christmas Party, the residents opened their big gift from their Secret Santa’s. Some staff chose to team up for this gift and others wanted to purchase their own, so residents either received one $40 gift or two $20 gifts.

It was a little sad this year as this was the first time in 26 years that Tina Bechtol had not prepared the Christmas dinner. Tina retired at the end of November after preparing our Thanksgiving dinner one last time. Thank you for all your years of service Tina!

We were very fortunate to have Kim Atkinson, “the new Tina”, Yvonne Duff and her son, Blaine Duff prepare the Christmas dinner for us this year. All of the food was very, very good and no one walked away hungry! Some of the residents ate so much that they had no room for any of the wonderful desserts!

 

Once everyone was finished eating we worked to prepare the lounge area for gift giving time. The first gifts to be passed out are the Secret Santa gifts. The residents open them and then try to guess which staff had them. Surprisingly, there were two correct guesses this year! Staff and resident alike really enjoy the fun and mystery around this activity. It never fails that at least one resident is completely shocked by which staff person had them and how well they did at getting things the resident really liked.

After Secret Santa the residents receive their haul of Christmas presents. Each resident gets a large Santa bag filled with gifts. The residents open them and then take turns sharing what they received. This year there were some new shoes, a lot of new clothes, some art stuff, a camera, and a robe, to name a few. The resident that received the robe was very excited about this gift!

One resident was shocked when the rest of the presents came out. She thought that the Secret Santa presents were the extent of their Christmas. She was very grateful for the Secret Santa gifts, but was blown away when there was so much more! When I asked her how she would communicate to those outside the YSB what Christmas here is like this is what she told me, “Even though it is a residential home the staff love us, take care of us and try to treat us like family”.

 

The residents always receive really nice name brand items that they often times do not have the opportunity to receive outside of care. It is always thrilling to see their reaction when they receive something that they really wanted, like the robe for example! I think he wore it the rest of the evening! Yvonne Duff, typically does the majority of the Christmas shopping for the residents each year. Yvonne has a special shopping ability which allows her to be able to pick out just the right gifts for each resident.

A lot of the time our residents are able to go home and be with someone from their family for at least part of Christmas day, but sometimes there are one or more who have no place to go for Christmas. When this happens we make sure that they have some additional presents to open Christmas morning along with having a big breakfast and getting to stay in pajamas for most of the day. This year we had three residents who were not able to have a Christmas visit.

On behalf of myself, the Board of Directors, staff, and most importantly the residents, we would like to thank all of this year’s donors as it is your support that allows us to create these life-long Christmas memories!