Providing Hope and Help to Youth and Their Families

Family Service has been providing comprehensive behavioral health services to youth and their families since the agency first opened its doors in 1960. At that time the center employed one part-time Child and Adolescent psychiatrist and two Child and Adolescent counselors. Today, Family Service employs over forty-five staff who provide services to youth and their families through a variety of programs! These staff include: Child and Adolescent psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, licensed clinical social workers, licensed clinical professional counselors, community support specialists, family resource developers/parent partners, WRAParound facilitators, adolescent substance abuse counselors and adolescent substance abuse prevention specialists. Spanish speaking staff including a bilingual psychiatrist, are also available in all of Family Services’ child, adolescent and family programs. Staff who specialize in working with hearing-impaired children and their families are also available.

The center has been in the unique position for the past almost fifty years of being a combination community mental health center/alcohol-drug treatment center and family service agency. This unique model has allowed us to provide a full-continuum of services to children, adolescents, adults and their family members experiencing a wide array of concerns including depression, difficulties in school, conflicts with peers, conflicts with parents or siblings, attention deficit disorder, autism spectrum disorders including Aspergers, substance abuse, divorce adjustment issues and many other issues facing youth today.

Our approach in providing services to children and adolescents is to provide the highest quality professional services available to all children and their families who reside in McHenry County and this has been our approach since the agency was founded in 1959. We believe in working with the entire family if at all possible and believe that the services we provide should be in partnership with the youth and their family building upon the strengths of both the child and his/her family. We adhere to the principles of “WRAParound” in working with children and their families and utilize an entire team of key people in the child and family’s life to “wrap community services around” the child and family in order to help maintain children in their own natural community, home and schools. Currently the center employs eight professional staff who provide professional WRAParound facilitation services. In addition, five Family Resource Developers or “Parent Partners” work with our clinical staff in partnership with our families to assist the family in accessing much needed resources and providing the unique perspective of a “parent partner” to assist the child and family in achieving their treatment/service goals and coping with the difficulties the family is facing.

Child and Adolescent Outpatient
The Child and Adolescent Program serves youth with a variety of mental health disorders and their families with the primary goal being the enhancement of the quality of life. Its purpose is to make available to all McHenry County youth and their families a comprehensive array of treatment services to preserve or restore them to a productive, happier life and to improve their ability to cope effectively with life’s everyday problems. It is expected that this will lead to effective functioning in all aspects of their lives. Working together, clients, staff, and the community fulfill Family Service’s mission of “Helping people help themselves.” Services are short-term in that they generally last less than six months, with many helped by only a few contacts. Family Service currently employs twelve (12) child and adolescent therapists.

Screening, Assessment and Support Services (SASS)
The SASS Program provides an array of services to seriously emotionally disturbed youth and their families with the primary goal being to increase the families’ ability to maintain their children in their homes and prevent out of home placements to hospitals or residential treatment programs. Its purpose is to make available to all seriously emotionally disturbed children and adolescents at risk of hospitalization and/or residential placement, and their families, the opportunity to participate in an intensive program designed to build on their strengths and increase effective coping skills to ensure as normalized and stable a family unit as is possible.

The SASS program embraces the philosophy of “WRAPAround” and joins with the family in building on their strengths and prioritizing needs and then assists in accessing and/or creating services to meet those needs, be they psychiatric, social/recreational, financial, legal, medical, educational, or related to the basic needs of housing, food and safety.

Because SASS is a short-term, 90 day program targeted to a population of youth at imminent risk of hospitalization or residential placement, it is primarily a crisis stabilization program designed to safely and rapidly stabilize the crisis and provide the intensity of services necessary to meet the needs of the family. On a selected basis, youth and their families are served for longer periods when maintenance is necessary to prevent out-of-home placement.

Adolescent Substance Abuse Program (ASAP)
OUR MISSION: “Helping People Help Themselves” which is achieved by intervening as early as possible in the lives of young people at high-risk for substance abuse by enhancing their ability to make healthy lifestyle choices. We provide quality substance abuse and mental health services to any adolescent (grades 5-12) and their families.

OUR GOAL: To provide each adolescent with a comprehensive behavioral health assessment so we are able to individualize services to best fit the needs of the adolescent. These services may include substance abuse education/intervention, individual or group counseling, family therapy, and medical or psychiatric support.

OUR PHILOSOPHY: We believe that alcoholism and chemical dependency are chronic progressive diseases that affect emotional, physical and spiritual well being. We also believe that young people need to be educated on these risks and understand the need to commit to a chemical free life style.

SERVICES WE OFFER: comprehensive behavioral health assessment (including an evaluation of alcohol/drug use), individual therapy (at school and/or in the office), group therapy, family therapy, family education, drug screening, group education, psychiatric evaluation and treatment, individualized treatment plan (that addresses substance use as well as emotional, behavioral and learning problems associated with substance use) Family Service currently employs five (5) full-time ASAP Counselors.

Traumatic Brain Injury Program
An acquired brain injury is an injury to the brain that is not present at birth. Causes of acquired brain injury can come from a variety of sources which include: traumatic brain injury (falls, motor vehicle accidents, assaults); strokes, tumors, encephalopathy (heart attacks, poisoning), and intracranial surgeries.

Acquired brain injury may result in an impairment of cognitive, physical, behavioral or emotional function. A brain injury may cause partial or total functional impairment in any of the above areas.
Brain Injury Services Include: Case Management/Community Support – To assist with strategies to maintain daily living skills, advocacy with disability issues, brain injury education, and referral linkage to community services or benefits; Counseling – Therapeutic support provided for adjustment and coping skills after brain injury; Brain Injury Groups – For support and skill development; Illinois Medicaid Brain Injury Waiver – Case management for home service coordination; Community Prevention and Education Programs.

Recently Family Service was awarded a training and consultation grant from “Voices For Illinois Children”, to provide specialized training and consultation to our clinical staff who work with early childhood age children ages 0-7 in order to expand and enhance the expertise of our mental health professionals who work with the early childhood mental health population.

The Illinois Division of Mental Health awarded Family Service a new grant for the implementation of the Family Consumer Specialist program within Region 2. One of Family Services’ Resource Developers serves in this new role throughout the northern part of the state.

The Family CARE project, (Child and Adolescent Recovery Experience) is a coordinated System of Care for children, adolescents and their families focusing on creating a family-driven, youth guided set of services and supports to meet the behavioral health needs of McHenry County’s youth. Family CARE also identifies gaps in needed services and provides a forum to address these gaps. Family CARE also acts as a bridge between schools and community services and aims to reduce stigma placed on youth and parents. The target populations of Family CARE include: youth with mental health issues; youth with both a mental health and substance abuse issue; transitional age youth with behavioral health issues; Latino youth with mental health and substance abuse issues; and young children (0-5) with severe mental health problems. The Family CARE project is a system of care supported by the McHenry County Mental Health (708) Board.

The Vision
Our vision for youth and family services is that: Every child and his or her family will have the resources to fulfill their potential for healthy and productive lives by providing integrated services in natural settings that are family driven, strengths based, tailored to individual needs, accountable to the people served, sustainable and culturally and linguistically competent, while utilizing evidence based interventions and practices.

Our team of professionals stands ready to provide the necessary hope and help to the youth and families of McHenry County.

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