104 Years of Service to the Community:
Family & Children Services, Inc. was established on July 15th, 1997 as a result of the merger of two well-established human service organizations in South Central Michigan, Family & Children Services of the Kalamazoo Area and Family and Children’s Service of Calhoun County. The organization was joined by the Kalamazoo Consultation Center (KCC) on July 1, 1998 and by The Adoption Cradle on November 1, 1999.
Driven by their respective Boards of Directors, mergers were accomplished in the belief that each agency involved could better serve changing community needs if resources were united under one infrastructure. Their common goal was to increase the collective abilities of agencies and communities to capture new opportunities of direct benefit to families, individuals, and children in Barry, Calhoun, and Kalamazoo counties.
The two parent organizations had been established in their respective communities through earlier mergers. In 1962, Family and Children’s Service of Calhoun County was formed, the result of a merger between Michigan Children’s Aid Society, established in Battle Creek in 1917 and Family Counseling Service begun in 1946. In 1971, a similar merger occurred between the Family Service Center of Kalamazoo, organized in 1903, and the Kalamazoo branch of Michigan Children’s Aid Society, organized in 1920, resulting in Family & Children Services of the Kalamazoo Area.
