About us

Downtown RAYS Office
The RAYS main office in downtown Renton.
RAYS provides high-quality, integrated behavioral healthcare and prevention services to children, youth and families, to restore hope for a healthier future.
Our vision is for all youth and families in our community to have the resources, support and strength they need to recover from substance abuse, mental health issues and other serious life challenges.
Most RAYS families turn to us for help coping with issues that include:
  • Physical and sexual abuse
  • Drug addiction
  • Grief from the death of a loved one or other loss
  • Depression
  • Acting out in school
  • Dropping out of school or otherwise incomplete education
  • Involvement or risk of involvement in crime
  • Poverty and lack of resources
Most of our services are free to the client, paid for with various service contracts. Counseling and drug treatment services have sliding-scale fees and most families pay through Medicaid. No family is turned away for not being able to pay.
RAYS is well-respected in its field. We receive referrals from school teachers and counselors, the court system, and Child Protective Services.
Key partnerships:
Renton and Tukwila School Districts. Our therapists and RAYS UP staff work on-site in about half of the Renton schools. Our therapists are in all of the Tukwila schools. This partnership eases the transportation barriers our families face and helps us work toward our clients’ academic success.
University of Washington, Washington State University, Seattle University, Seattle Pacific University, Antioch, and Northwest University. We host social work and counseling interns from these schools. Interns work at RAYS from 6 to 18 months. This partnership enables us to serve more children. It also helps us to mentor students in working with their profession’s most vulnerable families.
Community Agencies. RAYS is part of a network of sister agencies. We do similar work and each focus on a particular region. (e.g. Kent Youth & Family Services, Friends of Youth, Communites in Schools of Renton). We contract with Navos, one of the state’s largest mental health agencies, for Medicaid billing and 24-hour crisis care. RAYS works closely with HealthPoint Community Health Centers as well as with other health services to coordinate primary care and behavioral health services with our clients.