Ellipsis Administration

Staff at YESS are available 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week to assess difficult family situations, create a plan, and work toward solutions while ensuring everyone is safe.

The Blumenthal Crisis Nursery cares for the youngest children when their lives are turned upside down. As Iowa’s only site-based, 24-hour emergency shelter for newborns, toddlers, and young children, YESS provides a nurturing, supportive environment and a temporary haven from the trouble and uncertainty in their lives.

YESS is one of the few emergency shelters that also provides respite services ‘ up to 72 hours where a child can stay in shelter while their parents make plans for moving past a crisis situation. When these family crises arise, YESS provides the nurturing environment that young children need.

Ellipsis' Prevention and Diversion Programs work to prevent the removal of a child from a caring home. In-home treatment plans involve all affected family members. Ellipsis reduces significant interruptions to daily life that may negatively impact individual growth and feelings of self-worth.

Kids of all ages and backgrounds can find a safe and supportive environment at YESS when home is not a safe option. Some children come to our doors because they have been removed from their parents’ care due to allegations of abuse. Others arrive at YESS because they ran away from home or are currently homeless. Parents bring kids to YESS when they need help with a child’s mental health needs or because they are unsure how to prevent them from making unsafe choices. Sometimes a child just needs a structured, supportive environment to get back on track.

When situations arise in which staying at home is not possible, Ellipsis works directly with kids and families to provide the most accommodating solution appropriate to meeting the youth’s needs. Their residential programs include crisis care, residential care and transition support to help youth up to 20 years of age address behavioral or emotional concerns in a safe and enriching out-of-home setting. With each program, their focus remains on building the life- and relationship-based skills needed to successfully return or transition to family life, either in their own home, a foster or adoptive home or in supervised apartment living.

Ellipsis programs ensure that kids receive basic needs as well as counseling services, educational support, medical care and resources they need to heal from trauma.