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Programs and Services

Behavioral Health

Offers recovery-based individual, family, and group therapy services, case management, crisis intervention, community support, and psychiatry. MFS Behavioral Health services promote psychological, social, and emotional development that helps to achieve and maintain recovery. MFS offers Behavioral Health programs to children, adolescents, and adults.

Community Integrated Living Arrangement (CILA)

Offers a supported, shared-apartment living environment for adults with mental illness, with staff on-site 24 hours a day. Staff provide case management, counseling, medication monitoring, transportation to medical appointments, and training in daily living skills.

Community Schools

Operate during non-school hours and expand positive choices and opportunities for youth while achieving academic success. Tutoring, homework help, recreation, life skills, cultural opportunities, and social emotional services are included.

The Domestic Violence Advocacy Program

Provides office-based services to survivors/victims of intimate partner abuse. Services include brief in-person domestic violence case management, adult educational domestic violence groups, safety planning, crisis intervention, advocacy services, community outreach, referral and linkage. MFS provides workshops and presentations in the community to increase awareness of domestic violence services and available resources. Services are free, confidential, and available in English and Spanish.

For 24-hour emergency services, Illinois Domestic Violence Hotline number is 1-877-863-6338.

Early Learning Home Visiting Programs

Provide expectant and new parents with education and support they need at the time of their child’s birth and during the most crucial first five years of life. Sessions in the home focus on providing young children experiences that foster healthy growth and development and positive parent-child interactions. Families also meet for activities, to socialize, and attend workshops.

The Gerst Family Young Fathers Program

Helps fathers to become employed, financially self-sufficient, and raise healthy children. The program includes job readiness training and placement, money management training, parent education and support, and legal assistance. Participants are encouraged to actively nurture and financially support their children.

The Legal Aid Society’s Safety & Family Practice Group

Provides free and confidential legal services to survivors/victims of domestic violence. Services include brief advice/information and extended representation in orders of protection, divorce, and parentage cases. LAS also conducts trainings and presentations about legal protections and issues relevant to survivors of domestic violence. Services are available in English and Spanish, and in other languages by request.

Mental Health Juvenile Justice (MHJJ)

Works with eligible youth and their families to provide support and services to improve clinical functioning, school performance and attendance, and decrease recidivism. Counseling, case management, in-home and community-based services are provided to youth who have had contact with the juvenile justice system and display serios mental health concerns.

Mobile Crisis Response (MCR)

Providing screening assessment and supportive services, stabilizes crisis situations and provides intensive mental health services to adults, children, and adolescents who are experiencing acute psychiatric episodes. MCR uses intensive community-based intervention to limit psychiatric hospitalizations.

Peace within Chicago Homes

Provides individual support, group and case management services focused on building strong and safe relationships for persons who are at risk of or have used harmful behaviors in relationships. The program is voluntary, free and for people interested in learning more about themselves and ways to improve interactions with those they love.

Workforce Development

Provides TANF recipients with innovative job readiness training including communication, conflict resolution, professional networking, workplace ethics, resume creation and mock interviewing. Job Seekers will receive individual coaching, career goal planning, an individualized employment plan, specialized industry training, supportive services including transportation, work ready and credential attainment, access to parent support, behavioral health, legal aid and other supportive programs. Participants will also be invited to exclusive hiring events with access to a variety of dedicated employer partners.

Southeast All Our Kids Early Childhood Network

A collaborative that promotes a collective and holistic approach to serving pregnant women and families with children 0-5. MFS serves as a convener of community stakeholders, parents and caregivers that recognizes having a shared agenda, collective learning and collaborative leadership, and engagement are the key factors in providing pregnant mothers and families the necessary tools for their children to thrive in a healthy, socially, and emotionally stable environment. Through engaging in continuous learning, identifying gaps in services, assessing community needs, and proactively and strategically responding to changes in the local and state-wide community, we hope to educate, inform, prepare and advocate for pregnant women and families with children birth to five.

Youth And Young Adult Behavioral Health Initiative

A behavioral health initiative, funded by the City of Chicago serves uninsured young people ages 10-24 years. Services include assessment, goal-setting, counseling, psychiatric evaluation, case management, advocacy, and community support to alleviate emotional and psychological stressors.