Trying to summarize 100 years of notes for Family Counseling Service, even if neatly compiled in a spreadsheet, is no easy task.
As this well-respected nonprofit kicks off its centennial year with a “launch party” Sunday at its headquarters in downtown Aurora, the timeline put together from decades of meeting minutes certainly proves there is reason to celebrate.
Since opening its doors as The Family Service Organization on March 5, 1925, the agency has gone from a couple of employees handling 20 cases that first year with $500 seed money from its founding members to a staff of 92 and a budget of $7.2 million that last year served over 800 individuals.
And even though its mission statement has changed over the decades, it continues to focus on the specific needs of the community, needs that have grown, of course, as have the number of services, programs and partnerships.
A quick trip through the ages shows just how Family Counseling Service – after a couple changes it settled on that name in the mid-1960s – morphed from a citizen-led mission delivering food, clothing and heating coal to a multi-faceted agency run more like a business than a nonprofit focused on mental health issues.
It was in 1947, after World War II’s impact became obvious, that the first psychologist was hired by the organization to deal with grief, loss and the changing dynamics of the American family.
The client’s fee: $1
At that same time the board explored the idea of a temporary “mental hygiene clinic.” A decade later and still going strong, that name changed to Mental Health Clinic, and by the early ’60s there were four caseworkers covering not only Aurora, but North Aurora, Montgomery, Mooseheart and Batavia.
Just to show how quickly the organization grew: In 1961, 345 families were served, and four years later, that number had risen to 630.
More challenges meant more changes, more services. In 1963, Family Counseling Service formed an alcohol division, which became Kane Kendall Mental Health Center, then Community Counseling Center, which was eventually bought by Gateway Foundation.
It was in the meeting minutes from 1967 that Family Counseling Service became more committed to helping low-income families. As its budget grew during this period, so did its outreach programs, such as Family Life Education Project in School District 131 and counseling sessions for pregnant girls at Fox Hill Homes.
By the 1970s, services expanded to include drug addiction, family day care, parent effectiveness training, debt management, marriage enrichment and grief counseling.
In 1981, Family Counseling Service formally joined Big Brothers/Big Sisters, which expanded later that decade to include pregnant and parenting teens. A couple years later, the agency partnered with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to participate in screening, assessment and support services. Programs that soon followed included gambling counseling, anger management and counseling for seniors.
By 1990, the agency was operating on a $1.2 million budget. A decade later it purchased its current building at 70 S. River St. in Aurora, and 15 years after that, expanded another 4,000 square feet with a major renovation of the old garage area at the site.
Family Counseling Service continued to reach into the community in the new millennium, opening and later remodeling a second office in Oswego, and forming partnerships with Rush Copley Medical Center, Mutual Ground, Open Door Clinic, Tri-cities Family Services, Kane County Juvenile Justice Center and Kendall County Enhanced Probation Program.
Eric Ward, who worked as a receptionist for Family Counseling Service at age 19 and became its executive director in 2010, read through 100 years of meeting notes and came away with a few interesting stories – a predecessor brought in from New Jersey in 1953 after a national search died after three weeks on the job – but he also gained even more respect for the agency that he proudly leads.
“One thing I love about this organization is that as other hospitals and non-profits are merging into larger regional organizations, we have remained a true community-based organization that allows us to keep our finger on the pulse of the needs of the community,” Ward said.
Because it receives no government grants, he added, Family Counseling Service “can respond quickly when help is needed.”
Which is likely just what that handful of Aurora women philanthropists had in mind a hundred years ago when they went to their influential husbands – think Ira Copley, J.W. Dreyer, B.J. Strumm and Robert Lake, among others – to ask for seed money to help what was then described as “the worthy poor.”
Their first cases, according to the minutes, included “drunk, truancy, widow, insufficient income, blindness, general sickness, tuberculosis and old age” issues.
A century later, the agency’s work focuses on the impact COVID-19 had on our youth, as “more are struggling to function” because of anxiety and fear.
“We are entrenched in our local towns, schools, homes, courtrooms and other places,” Ward told me. “And when our community has a need somewhere else, we’ll respond there too.”
dcrosby@tribpub.com
