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CELEBRATING A 1921-2021CENTURY
In this centennial booklet, we invite you to learn more about the history of Family & Children’s Services (F&CS) – from our humble beginnings as the Family Welfare Society, a small agency helping poor families with basic needs to one of Oklahoma’s largest and most dynamic mental health organizations helping people across their lifespan.
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Gail Lapidus Chief Executive Officer
With an abundance of hope for another century of service to the community,
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A CENTURY OF COMMITMENT
As we celebrate 100 years of pursuing vital work in Tulsa, we are also celebrating the organizational culture of Family & Children’s Services (F&CS) which is nimble, hopeful, forward-thinking and innovative. These qualities are firmly rooted in the our DNA and provide us with a foundation to grow, respond to emerging needs and thrive into our second century.
As I reflect on my decades as CEO, and we end our 100th year of caring for Tulsans, I’m grateful for our staff, board of directors, donors, volunteers and partners of yesteryear and today. Thank you for all of the individual and collective contributions that have helped shaped F&CS into the Center of Excellence it has become. In addition, none of our work would have been possible without the foundational support of the Tulsa Area United Way and the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.
It’s hard to believe that we’ve been changing lives in our community for a century and even harder to believe that I have had the privilege of being part of this great organization since 1974, and leading as CEO since 1986.
We believe that people can change and triumph over adversity. We believe in second chances and have witnessed the remarkable ability of our clients to overcome insurmountable challenges, loss and trauma, and emerge resiliently.
As you will see throughout this booklet, F&CS has made a huge impact during our first 100 years. As we look ahead to our second century, our goal is for F&CS to continue as a community leader, problem solver and provider of excellent care. We know that the only certainty in our world is change, and we also know that we will never waiver from our core mission: changing lives.
2022 Letter from CEO Gail Lapidus at close of 100th Anniversary year
A Century of Commitment | 3
Dear Friends,
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The Early Years:
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Celebrate a century and learn more about the history of Family & Children’s Services through our timeline.
You’llemerged.read
A Nonprofit is Born
The city’s west side soon became populated by those living on day wages, a river yet a world apart from the mansions of oil barons. Caring citizens began to notice the struggles of their less fortunate neighbors and invited the Family Welfare Association of America to help find a solution.
n the 1920s, dreamers and entrepreneurs flocked to Tulsa to stake their claim in the fledgling oil industry. As a result, Tulsa became one of the most affluent and fastest-growing cities in the U.S. But that growth also ushered in a surfeit of low-paying, often unstable jobs in the oil fields. This resulted in an imbalance of rich and poor residents.
As a result, the Family Welfare Society of Tulsa was established on October 10, 1921 “to restore disadvantaged families through relief, employment, medical care, education and friendly supervision.” This was a precursor to holistic care and wraparound services. In 1925, the organization was housed in a building donated by oilman Waite Phillips in downtown Tulsa, shared by another new nonprofit organization, the Tulsa Community Chest Fund, now known as the Tulsa Area United Way.
Here you will discover how services evolved as mental health breakthroughs
Our1921-2021Timeline | A Nonprofit is Born
about our humble beginnings as the Family Welfare Society of Tulsa, a small agency helping poor families with basic needs to one of Oklahoma’s largest and most dynamic mental health organizations helping people across their lifespan.
From the beginning, the agency rapidly adopted innovation and expertise that continues as hallmark to this day. Over the last century, Family & Children’s Services has continuously shifted its services to help families in accordance with changing conditions on the ground.
This is part of a letter that was included in the addendum of F&CS’s original incorporation documents. It highlights the desperate need for services in Tulsa in the 1920s.
“I am one of the many unfortunate women who married young and made the awful mistake of marrying a ne’er do well. I have five children, and every four or five months we go on a diet –compelled to by poverty.
I tried to make a change when I had two children. While we were separated, he took my boy away from me by force. I had no money to go to court. I had no one who could help me so I had to go back to him. Is there an organization that will protect me and my children when I try to rise up out of poverty and suffering? It is the start that
5A Nonprofit is Born |
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During the 1950s, the Salvation Army’s home for unwed mothers housed and cared for pregnant teens. The issue of teen pregnancy had long been a challenge in society, taking an emotional and physical toll on those involved. It was particularly so in the early part of the 20th century when there was a significant social stigma attached to being an unwed mother. F&CS formed a partnership with the Salvation Army to provide counseling to teens and foster care and adoption services for the newborn children.
In the 1960s, gender roles began to shift as more women entered the workforce. At the same time, Tulsa witnessed a rise in child abuse, domestic violence and substance abuse, or perhaps, a rise in awareness. As always, F&CS was on the front lines, identifying problems, raising resources to address them and applying the very latest treatment.
| Meeting Challenges Where They Exist
y 1940, Tulsa’s population had grown significantly. F&CS caseworkers were busily filling the needs of the growing community. Throughout this time, F&CS met the needs by identifying problems, raising resources and applying breakthrough treatments into services and programs. When the U.S. entered World War II, many military wives entered the workforce. In response, F&CS opened child care centers and provided counseling services to working mothers.
Mid-Century: Meeting Challenges Where They Exist
7Meeting Challenges Where They Exist |
“We had one wonderful woman who was placed with a family of 10 children (including) two sets of twins. What I remember about her was she sure knew how to cook up a big pan full of macaroni and tomatoes and onions and make a pretty good meal out of it.” – Florence Beeman, F&CS social worker who oversaw the child care program.
In 1952, F&CS took over a state program called Homemaker Services to stabilize and preserve families by providing temporary in-home child care.
| Strengthening Families and At-Risk Youth
In the 1990s, F&CS partnered with Community Action Project (CAP) of Tulsa to offer a new Tulsa County Head Start program which is still operating as a collaborative project. CAP serves as the lead agency providing education, nutrition and health services, while F&CS provides the required allied services for which we are so well-known: home visitation, family support, family advocacy and mental health services.
In the late 1970s, family therapy emerged as a new form of counseling. F&CS invited leading family therapy experts from around the world to Tulsa to provide training for therapists and agency staff, making our corner of the world a mecca for family therapy. F&CS had offered programs in sex education in the 1950s and ’60s, and until 1974 it was the largest adoption agency in Tulsa. The program ended due to the advent of the birth control pill, the legalization of abortion and changing attitudes about pregnant
Asteenagers.awareness of intra-familial sexual abuse rose in the 1980s, F&CS saw increased victims and implemented emerging treatment models to help abused and neglected children. F&CS became Tulsa’s first organization to offer therapy for victims of child abuse.
As divorce rates in Oklahoma rose and began to lead the nation, F&CS brought a national program to Tulsa, Helping Children Cope with Divorce, which is still offered today. This practical, four-hour course provides valuable tools for divorcing parents to better understand their children’s needs and how to develop a co-parenting plan following a divorce.
Modern Age: Strengthening Families and At-Risk Youth
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9Strengthening Families and At-Risk Youth |
In the 1980s, F&CS ventured into the prevention space with an after-school enrichment and life skills program for children and teenagers living in apartments operated by the Tulsa Housing Authority. Proudly, Choices received national acclaim, but more importantly, provided a place for young people who might otherwise be idle while their parents were working.
Pictured: F&CS staff with Choices teens. “F&CS’s Choices program is making a huge impact by helping teens and parents who reside in Tulsa’s public housing complexes. This life skills programming includes drug abuse prevention, career planning, self-esteem and social skills.” – 1991 Oklahoma Department of Health newsletter
A major expansion of services was accompanied by a need for new facilities, resulting in improvements to existing buildings as well as new headquarters at Legacy Plaza West for operations, the COPES call center and other vital functions.
Rapid Growth in Mental Health Care
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he new century signaled another major shift as F&CS transformed from a family service agency to the state’s leading community mental health center. F&CS expanded services to multiple locations for individuals with serious and complex mental illness. In addition to a full range of services, F&CS launched an on-site pharmacy to ensure clients have access to low or no-cost medication. F&CS established a 24/7/365 crisis hotline and mobile response known as the Community Outreach Psychiatric Emergency Services (COPES) for those experiencing a mental health crisis.
A New Century:
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| Rapid Growth in Mental Health Care
And in 2021, F&CS’s longtime location at 6th and Peoria was dedicated as the new Gail Lapidus Center – a friendly, safe haven for children and teens that provides outpatient treatment for child abuse, trauma and the full spectrum of children’s mental health.
The most recent decade brought a major expansion of our crisis service continuum. A growing statewide shortage of inpatient beds often forced patients to travel significant distances for treatment. In response, F&CS opened its CrisisCare Center (CCC) in 2014 to provide assessment and stabilization. Further extending services to the front lines of client needs, F&CS embedded staff in Tulsa’s 911 Dispatch Center to assist with triage for mental health crisis calls.
“I have directly witnessed the impact that Women in Recovery is having. I am touched each time I visit the program and see the changes that each of these women have made in their individual lives.” – Amy Santee, GKFF
Pictured:County. George Kaiser with GKFF and F&CS staff
In response to Oklahoma having the highest rate of female incarceration in the world, F&CS partnered with the George Kaiser Family Foundation to launch Women in Recovery in 2009. This intensive outpatient alternative for eligible women facing long prison sentences for drug-related offenses has significantly reduced the rate of female incarceration in Tulsa
11Rapid Grown in Mental Health Care |
Rapid accessibility to high quality mental health services is critical for a person’s well-being. Fully committed to access to care, F&CS breaks down barriers with locations throughout the community; we visit homes daily to provide therapy and support; and we are embedded in public schools, Head Start, jails, courts and other nonprofit organizations.
Over the last 100 years, adapting and understanding the human condition has changed in the face of advancements in science, psychology, chemistry and technology, to name a few. Decade-to-decade, F&CS has embraced innovations, advancements and new treatments. The agency continues to look ahead to understand future trends, disruptive forces, drivers of change, scientific breakthroughs and opportunities that will shape the industry and the way we provide services. Here’s a snapshot of some of the century’s advancements and ways F&CS adapted.
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Mental illness research increased as federally funded organizations were formed. Since F&CS became a Community Mental Health Center in 2000, we have been providing Tulsans with an array of mental heath treatment programs, medication interventions, crisis services, diversion from incarceration, addiction recovery services and integrated health and mental health services.
Psychiatric medications and adherence improvements helped make recovery achievable. Over the last two decades, research exploded in brain science, evidence-based clinical practices, pharmacology and advancements that help people adhere to medication protocols. F&CS’s pharmacy and clinical medical adherence staff works closely with clients to remove the barriers that can cause some individuals to stop taking their medications.
Technology has opened a new frontier for delivering and accessing mental health care. Telehealth emerged during the pandemic as a way to provide services. Digital links between law enforcement and providers enhance rapid mental health crisis services. F&CS will keep its eye on emerging innovations of mental health care and technology.
A century of change: Advancements that Shaped F&CS
| Advancements that Shaped F&CS
Evidence-based practices, advanced screening and assessment tools emerged from behavioral health scientific research, transforming clinical care models. Today, the F&CS standard of care, in all programs, is providing only evidence-based modalities.
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Advancements that Shaped F&CS |
F&CS has always been committed to advancing its technology environment to enhance client services and laptopstechnologyPictured:iPadsstaffremotelythroughwouldopenF&CSwithmentaleffectiveness.organizationalWhenthedigitalhealthrevolutiontookofftheglobalpandemicin2020,wasreadyandremainedensuringthatclientservicescontinuewithoutdisruptiontelehealth.StaffworkedandF&CSprovidedbothandclientswithcomputers,andconnectivity.theF&CSinformationdepartmentprepareforstaff.
Cultural and linguistic competence of organizations and direct care providers moved to the forefront. In response, F&CS continues to encourage the use of culturally competent care models that help address the needs of individuals with diverse values, beliefs, sexual orientations and backgrounds that vary by race, ethnicity and/or language and socio-economic circumstances.
14 | Advancements that Shaped F&CS
Addiction recovery services evolved as researchers understood how substance use changes the brain. F&CS continues to expand substance use and diversion programs to meet growing need of individuals suffering with addiction disorders that often leads to criminal justice involvement.
A century of change: Advancements that Shaped F&CS, continued
Whole-person care developed out of a growing body of research advancing the integration of behavioral health with physical health care. Today, as a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic, we provide integrated care for clients with serious mental health, multiple chronic medical conditions and complex social support needs.
Social determinants of health emerged in the last decade providing a broader understanding of the economic, environmental and social forces that negatively affect a person’s mental health, physical health and well-being. F&CS addresses these needs, often caused by poverty, by providing transportation, linkage to housing, food and other basic need resources.
Looking from the past into the future, we can only image what’s next. What’s certain is F&CS’s implementation of breakthroughs.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) helped us understand how childhood abuse and neglect, domestic violence, toxic stress, parental substance abuse and poverty among others can have a lasting impact on a child’s health and well-being throughout their lifetime. F&CS expanded children’s mental health and trauma treatment programs for children and families.
Early childhood neuroscience helped inform the importance of building strong foundations for young children, prerequisites for educational, social and future success. F&CS has partnered with CAP Tulsa for decades to provide social supports and mental health care for children and their families enrolled in the Head Start program.
From day one, innovative partnerships have advanced F&CS’s services. We know that no single organization can go it alone and have formed strategic partnerships with other organizations, schools, police, fire and courts to share resources, expertise and collaborate with community-wide initiatives to address complex challenges.
15Advancements that Shaped F&CS |
Pictured: Tulsa’s Community Response Team with F&CS COPES mental health expert, Tulsa Police Department and Tulsa Fire Department.
Gail Lapidus Center
Appointments: 918.587.9471 COPES Crisis Line: 918.744.4800 www.fcsok.org
Salvation Army 102 N. Denver Ave., Suite C Tulsa, OK 74103
Sarah and John Graves Center 2325 S. Harvard Ave. Tulsa, OK 74114
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