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Family & Children's Service
127 West State Street
Ithaca, NY 14850
607.273.7494

News

Aug 1, 2010
Openning New Doors Ribbon Cutting and Building Dedication
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Events

Cayuga at Twilight
September 12
Whispering Pines

Robert E. Hamlisch, MD Memorial Lecture Featuring Richard Kogan
October 3
Bailey Hall

FesTOYval
December 9
Country Club of Ithaca

News

May 17, 2010

Ithaca agency looks back on 125 years

Family and Children's Service has evolved over its time of service

By Liz Lawyer
elawyer@gannett.com

Without the Family and Children's Service, advocates say, Ithaca would be left with an awful hole.

"It's like 'It's a Wonderful Life' -- that whole idea of what would life be like in Tompkins County if Family and Children's Service had never existed. I think it would be pretty sad," said Roger Sibley, executive director of the Franziska Racker Centers.

One of the significant accomplishments of FCS is that it has kept up with Ithaca's changing community throughout its history and always strives to meet its needs, says Director of Development Katie Foley.

And it's no small feat to keep it up for 125 years. The agency celebrates that milestone May 24.

"An interesting thing about this organization and the organizations that became this organization is their continuing responsiveness to new and changing needs," said FCS President and CEO Jim Johnston.

The agency started in 1885 as a children's home for kids whose parents worked during the week and needed someone to look after their families while they were away. Along with that, the Ithaca Children's Home provided an adoption agency for children who were abandoned there.

In 1912, Associated Charities formed, later to become the Family Welfare Society and, in 1956, to merge with the Ithaca Children's Home to form FCS.

Foley said, "From the get-go to today, children have been at the heard of FCS' services."

Maryanne Banks, director of services for the Tompkins County Department of Social Services, said the agency has buttressed the DSS' mission in pursuing its own.

"Jim and FCS are really able to do a lot with very little," Banks said. "For 32 years, I have worked with them. Also, a lot of the kids we work with go to counseling at FCS. They are one of the main resources we refer them to. They have real expertise in working with children."

Sibley said, "Mental illness is very challenging for those who have had it. It can be off-putting for people in the community. To have an agency that readily embraces people who have struggled with a mental illness ... is really, really important. That 'Wonderful Life' idea applies to everybody -- would things be different if they weren't there? It's so worthwhile ... to invest in people, and FCS has been investing for 125 years, which is a lot of folks. How do you measure their impact in the community, when they (have touched so many people)?"

At 125 years old, the agency has been through many challenges, both self-imposed and external. From providing unemployment grants in the late 1920s to mid '30s, to establishing legal aid in 1938 and the community's first mental health clinic in about 1950, to establishing home care, the Parent Aide, caregiver respite and credit counseling programs, the agency has been many things to many people.

Today, the agency focuses on various mental health, employee assistance and youth and senior services.

Johnston said he expects the agency to remain a constant in Ithaca.

"Our core programs are in high demand, and I don't think that demand will go away," he said. "We get virtually no government money. ... We're not dependent on outside funding, so I don't anticipate that over the next 25 years that would change. It may get bigger or smaller, but I don't think (FCS) will go away."

Besides the programs the agency still runs itself are several that it built up and then spun off to other organizations or as stand-alone programs, such as hospice care and a credit counseling program now housed at Cornell Cooperative Extension.

"We've also been involved in more controversial things, like helping establish Planned Parenthood," he said.

But mental health services, especially for youth and children as young as their toddler years, are the largest programs at FCS now.

"It became clear 20 years ago that what we were seeing walking in the door was much more complicated and at much younger ages," Johnston said. "We needed licensed professionals, and we worked hard to bring (patients) what they needed."

Most recently, the agency moved to State Street, completed a capital campaign to pay for its new building, consolidated its clinic -- which had been split into two buildings for several years -- and is starting to build its new Children's Comprehensive Care Fund, which will pay for work done by the agency with children that isn't billable to insurance companies.

Insurance will reimburse only for time spent face to face with a patient, but to work sufficiently with a child, a therapist or social worker must talk with parents, teachers, and other adults, Foley said. The Children's Comprehensive Fund will help cover those extra costs.

"On average we get $65 and it costs $125 per hour to work with children," Johnston said. "United Way dollars help to close that gap," but the fund will make sure the service can be sustained.

Other projects for the future include programs to serve Alzheimer's patients, enhancing the existing respite program, which gives caregivers of elders a needed break from their duties, and keeping the door open for other possibilities, Johnston said. "It's hard to tell in this economy what else might come across our front steps."

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