The mission of Gulf Coast Youth Academy is to protect public safety by reducing juvenile crime and delinquency in Florida through a commitment to the Balanced Approach to Restorative Justice (BARJ) philosophy.

The BARJ philosophy and treatment approach of Gulf Coast Youth Academy identifies the harm created by youth to the crime victims and communities and focuses on teaching empathy and repairing harm. The BARJ philosophy encompasses decreasing youths' threat to public safety, holding youth accountable for the harm caused by their crimes, and enabling youth to make amends to their victims and the community.

The goals of Gulf Coast Youth Academy are to help youth develop competencies that are valued by the community through therapeutic and educational programming in a secure, structured environment and to promote youths' successful transition into the community without re-offending. These goals can be accomplished by providing programming that increases youths' skill in academics, employability, reasoning, decision making, impulse control, conflict resolution, leadership, and interpersonal problem-solving.