Youth & Family Services

The mission of the Youth and Family Service (YFS) Unit is to:

• Serve as youth mentors through constant presence and communication with youth to establish and build rapport.
• To educate through such courses as Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE), Change Starts with YOUth camp and Summer Youth Program in effort to impact prevention by offering healthy alternatives.
• To maintain order and deliver police services in the Moorhead School District.

  Left to Right:  YSC Louis Ochoa, SRO Andy Werk, SRO Jessica Horn and SRO Brandon Heide 

Youth Services Coordinator Louis Ochoa

YSC Ochoa is a non-sworn or civilian employee that during the school year works and teaches at the new Moorhead High School Career Academy and Moorhead Alternative Learning Center.   He works with youth that have disorderly/behavioral issues, truancy problems, and serves as a youth mentor.  He is a part of the Building Emergency Response Team at the Career Academy.  YSC Ochoa is involved with a program called "Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity" (SEED). SEED is about understanding our diverse population of students and families in our schools. It teaches about the different cultures in our community and how we can work with and understand our community. YSC Ochoa's role is to work with families and students and mentor them by understanding their culture, their background and beliefs. He helps them apply these things to their schoolwork and give them a positive outlook on life outside of school and in the community. YSC Ochoa works with a partnership between the police, probation, social services, shelter care and schools with youth at-risk by taking on juvenile court community service referrals where he takes kids out to work sites to complete community service sentences.  In the summer, he works with the Summer Youth Program and the Change Starts with YOUth camp as well as works with the juvenile community service program.