Since its inception, the National Youth Advocate Program has reflected the character and vision of Dr. Mubarak Awad, founder and former president/CEO of NYAP. NYAP started in Ohio where Dr. Awad created the Ohio Youth Advocate Program in response to needs identified by the Ohio Youth Commission (now the Department of Youth Services), which is the state agency charged with finding placements for delinquent youth referred by county-level juvenile court judges.

At the time, in 1978, the state of Ohio ranked number one in the nation in the number of youth under eighteen years of age held in secure facilities, with Georgia and California a close second and third. There was a tremendous need for alternative community-based services and after-care placements for youth who were being released from institutions, group homes, and detention centers.

Dr. Awad had firsthand knowledge about the detriments of institutional care. His mother had been forced to place him and his siblings in orphanages in Jerusalem after their father was killed in the 1948 Israeli-Arab war. Moreover, as a youth, Dr. Awad acted out in school and the orphanage, and in a different place and time, may have found himself caught in a juvenile court system.

Later, at Ohio's Bluffton College, Dr. Awad studied social work and sociology. Initially, he believed in the value of group therapy and rehabilitation for troubled youth. He came to understand, however, that even if youth appeared to be successful in a group home or institution, they eventually still had to learn how to be successful in the outside world including within their family and community. Dr. Awad decided that a better environment for changing behavior and one that had a greater chance of lasting over the long term was for youth to be served within a family setting in a community. He strongly believed that youth need to be surrounded by positive role models with an unwavering commitment to their success, yet another reason that institutions, group homes, and detention centers were detrimental.