[Noozhawk’s note: First in a series sponsored by the Hutton Parker Foundation.]
The nonprofit Family Service Agency has been serving Santa Barbara County for 123 years. It first opened its doors in 1899 with one employee and a few volunteers providing eight families with food, clothing, firewood and financial support.
While needs have changed over the past century, the commitment of Family Service Agency remains vital and steadfast, responding to community hardships as they emerge. Today’s FSA has a staff of 234 experienced professionals assisting nearly 28,000 individuals in five locations throughout the county.
The Constitution of Associated Charities, as it was historically named, represented Santa Barbara County’s first organized social service agency. Over the decades, the charity expanded while helping Santa Barbara residents through the Great Depression, the 1925 earthquake and the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. In fact, in 1919, Associated Charities transformed its original adobe wing into an emergency hospital to treat the flu.
By 1920, 345 families were being served by the agency, which positioned itself as a safeguard to ensure that no preventable poverty nor suffering persisted without relief.
This core tenet continued to guide the Family Service Agency, which it was renamed in May 1953 to acknowledge its transition from a group-focused agency to a family service-oriented one. It was at this time that the agency expanded its child, family and couples counseling services, reflecting the increase of working mothers, the high cost of living and mobility of families.
“It’s the agency’s ability to adapt,” executive director Lisa Brabo said, “that accounts for its longevity.”
During the latter half of the 1950s and early ’60s family life shifted again, creating a new model for social work focused on “rebuilding family life, understanding the relationships between parents and children, and providing all sorts of advantages to both young and old,” as it was described in a 1956 annual meeting speech.
This philosophy would inspire FSA’s current mission: “to strengthen and advocate for families and individuals of all ages and diversities, helping to create and preserve a healthy community.”
This healthy community expanded in the 1960s to serve Carpinteria, Lompoc and Santa Maria residents while new programs were developed to assist seniors, a core audience served by today’s Family Service Agency.
FSA would come to strengthen ties to these communities, eventually merging with the Santa Maria Valley Youth & Family Center in 2017, and Guadalupe’s Little House by the Park in 2019.
Family Service Agency was forced to sell its original adobe home in 1980 due to declining funding from federal sources and the United Way of Santa Barbara County. It moved to space on De la Vina Street before eventually settling in its current location at 123 W. Gutierrez St., the site of the former landmark institution, the Talk of the Town restaurant.
The sale of the property brought new sources of revenue and a resurgence of volunteers. It was also about this time that a community task force identified the need for youth mental health services, as the country experienced increased suicide rates among young children and violent crimes committed by youth.
Clinical care in Santa Barbara was unaffordable for most, compelling FSA to establish a Child Guidance Clinic. This clinic would lead to longstanding contracts with local school districts to provide on-site counseling to children and their families, a partnership that thrives more than 40 years later.
Family Service Agency is now in seven school districts, serving 38 elementary schools, 13 junior high schools and eight high schools, reaching 650 students. All of the students surveyed who received treatment showed a reduction in symptoms of depression.
This ability to identify community needs and develop programs to meet those needs is foundational to FSA. More recently, the organization has helped the community navigate challenges resulting from the 2017 Thomas Fire, the deadly 2018 Montecito flash flooding and debris flows, and COVID-19.
“During COVID, all of our core services were needed,” Brabo said.
People were struggling — many for the first time — with a decline in income, difficulty navigating child care and distance learning, and an increase in mental health challenges. Seniors and their caregivers also experienced a lack of support while isolated at home.
“The issue with COVID is that it’s not a short-term problem,” Brabo explained. “It’s cumulative. We are digging out two years’ worth of problems as people are still behind on bills, rent and academics while mental health issues have skyrocketed.”
When farmworkers needed quarantine space, FSA secured hotel rooms through its Housing for the Harvest program, providing safe isolation yet ongoing connection with family.
When parents needed more help because kids were home from school, FSA created a parent-coaching call service staffed with bilingual educators.
When seniors became homebound, FSA provided food and friendship.
And FSA expanded partnerships with organizations like the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, United Way and the Mental Wellness Center to aid with financial, medical and mental health challenges, always collaborating to avoid duplication of efforts.
It’s not surprising that FSA was recently honored as a 2022 Public Health Champion, so recognized for the agency’s ability to work collaboratively, provide leadership, and demonstrate sensitivity while improving the health status of local residents.
With more than a century of experience, FSA has a rich history that set a framework for its future, along with extraordinary partnerships with public entities, nonprofit organizations, schools, businesses, private foundations and donors that has enabled FSA to amplify its impact, helping to stabilize and strengthen our community.
Click here for more information about the Family Service Agency. Click here to make an online donation.
— Ann Pieramici is a Noozhawk contributing writer. She can be reached at news@noozhawk.com.