.png){kind=small}
About Bethany
Mission
The mission of Bethany for Children & Families is to keep children safe, to strengthen families, and to build healthy communities.
Vision
Bethany for Children & Families will respond to the critical needs of Quad City region youth and families. The agency will provide quality services, contribute to innovative community collaborations, and lead in resolving community problems that impact families and children.
About Bethany for Children & Families
Bethany for Children & Families is a child welfare, mental health, community education, and social services provider which has offered aid and support to children and families in western Illinois and eastern Iowa. The organization staffs a professional team of nearly 135 social workers, licensed counselors, case managers, and educators, directed by a Board of volunteer community leaders. Offering 37 programs and services, Bethany serves over 15,000 children and families annually. Bethany's programs and services are accredited by the Council on Accreditation, a nonprofit accreditor of human services.
Founded and incorporated in 1899, Bethany was predominantly a custodial facility that concentrated on the needs of children who were homeless or whose parents could not or would not raise them. Since 1938, Bethany has also offered foster care and child welfare services. The agency has established strong relationships with the various neighborhoods, towns, cities, and rural areas that comprise the Illinois and Iowa portions of the greater Quad Cities region. The agency is known as a community asset that families can turn to in time of need.
Since the 1980s, Bethany has moved beyond the provision of child welfare and adoption services addressing problems and situations that impact the children, youth, and families of the Quad Cities area. During these years, Bethany developed and tested different prevention and early-intervention service modalities in its efforts to increase the effectiveness of its services and prevent family-of-origin disruptions.
Today, the agency provides services in Scott, Clinton, Jackson, Cedar, and Muscatine counties in Iowa, and Rock Island, Henry, Mercer, Whiteside, Knox, Warren, Lee, Carroll and Henderson counties in Illinois.
The agency is able to provide its array of services with funding from the United States Department of Health and Human Services; the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development; the Illinois Department of Children & Family Services; the Illinois Department of Human Services; the Iowa Department of Human Services; the United Way of the Quad Cities Area; the Rock Island County (708) Mental Health Board; the Donated Funds Initiative (Title XIX funds of the Social Security Act); and generous private community donors and foundations.
Agency services include adoption; foster care; programs that provide counseling and therapy services to children at their school; a mobile dental program that visits children at their school to provide dental examinations and cleanings free of charge to those who have no insurance or have Title XIX insurance; an after-school program that helps at-risk youth learn anger management and social skills; programs to help families and teens overcome homelessness; child welfare services that provide protective and preventative services to children who are at-risk or are victims of abuse or neglect; and education programs for junior high and high school students that teach self-esteem, respect, risks of sexual behavior, and responsibility.
