Lutheran Family and Children's Services of Missouri

• Nurturing Teens
• Nurturing Kids
• Respite/Foster Care
• Step Up
• Individual, Family & Group Counseling
• School-Based Counseling
• Child Psychiatry
• Adoption Focused Mental Health

You can learn more about each of these programs by clicking 'St. Louis County Children's Services Fund Programs.'

Here are some examples of how LFCS is making a difference, thanks to these program enhancements:

Adoption Focused Mental Health
An LFCS social worker, Anne Farina, helps implement the Adoption Focused Mental Health Program.  Anne was adopted herself, and comes to the program with first-hand experience.  "We are special, special people," is what she shares with the children that participate in this program.  "We adopted-folks are very special, with a unique outlook on life.  It doesn't mean that other things aren't important to us -- like prom, sports, having fun or friends.  It just means that there are other layers to us.  Like wanting to know about our birth parents, questioning where we are from, and sometimes doubting who we are."

She says, "It is not every day that I think about being adopted.  It is not every day that I think about the questions that I have had over the years or about the answers that I will never find.  But who I am and how I view the world has been profoundly impacted by my own history.  I think that I always knew of a missing piece in me.  Some call it a void.  I feel it in the pit of my stomach.  I don't know if I think of it as a void, but rather a piece of me that maybe isn't meant to be filled.  Or maybe filling it means something different.  Maybe I fill mine with love and connections.  But sometimes the ways we try to fill it are not healthy and can be very dangerous to our lives and even to our families and loved ones."

The Adoption Focused Mental Health Program provides services for children and youth who may be struggling with issues associated with being adopted or in foster care.  Our goal is to provide counseling and support through social workers, like Anne, that celebrates strengths and is sensitive to the unique challenges of adoption and who have been in foster care faces.

Nurturing Teens
LFCS is currently offering a Nurturing Teens - Parenting Class to teens in the Bayless School District.  Workers use the nationally recognized curriculum and base classes on the needs and requests of the participants.  Currently, this program is serving 17 parents and their children, helping these young people juggle the demands of school and work, in addition to being the best parents they can be.  The group has become a source of support as each member struggles with different challenges.

During the course of the sessions, the program covers topics like children's brain development, expectations and development of children, child-proofing your home, discipline, safe sleep, alternatives to spanking, communication in a multi-generational home, family morals & values, and managing stress, to name a few.

Outreach to these young parents is an important part of our mission and growing hope.  We are grateful for the donation of meals and child-care that help make these meetings appealing and successful.

School based Counseling
The School Based Counseling program focuses on early intervention services to reach youth struggling with depression, emotional or behavioral issues, and prevention services that introduce and support healthy alternatives to substance abuse, violence and aggression.

One school counselor has been working with John, an 8th grade boy who suffers from sever anxiety.  John is the middle child in his family and has very high expectations placed on him by the adults in his life.  He is expected to be the top student in class, the best pitcher on his select baseball team and to earn acceptance letters from the top Catholic high schools in the area.

While working with his school counselor, John admitted he struggles with self-injury as a way to cope with the stress.  When John finds himself in an overwhelming situation, he will cut himself on his upper thigh as a way to release anxiety.  John's school counselor has also been meeting with his family to help them understand the anxiety and self-injury that John struggles with.  During these meetings, John learned that his mother and father both struggled with anxiety in the past.  This revelation has opened up communication within this family and has helped John begin the process of healing.  John continues to work with his school counselor using Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) interventions while his parents are pursuing help from a Child Psychologist.  Thanks to the School Based Counseling Program, this family is getting the help they needed!