In several different programs, professionals with specialized training work with families in their homes. They help to avoid the separation of children from the family, to successfully transition children in out-of-home care back home and to help individuals of all ages with mental illness avoid hospitalization or achieve stability back in the community.

Gillis Family Reunion Services (FRS) provides intensive, short-term, in-home crisis intervention and family education services to reunite families, where the child(ren) would remain in care for 6-months or more, without such intensive services. Read More.

Intensive Family Counseling

Job Readiness & Retention Services

The goal of this program is to assist individuals in making a successful transition from welfare to work through employment that pays a living wage. Professional staff works with individuals to identify and remove barriers to employment such as housing, child care, transportation, and education. Mental health problems that may interfere with the goal of employment are addressed by our professional staff with empathy and understanding. For those individuals who may not be able to secure employment, our staff works with individuals to make application for disability benefits. Job Readiness and Retention Services are supported through a contractual agreement between the Kansas Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS) and IFC. Services are provided in Johnson, Wyandotte and Leavenworth Counties in Kansas. Read More.

Functional Family Therapy

This is an empirically grounded, well-documented and successful family intervention that targets teens involved in the juvenile justice system. This program is also available to youth who are at-risk of becoming involved in the juvenile justice system. Intensive Family Counseling is the only certified Functional Family Therapy (FFT) program site in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Counselors provide on-average 13 counseling sessions to participating families over a period of three to six months. Key outcomes include stronger relationships, reduced negativity, blaming and hopelessness within the family. These outcomes are achieved by strengthening communication skills, teaching parents effective responses to problem behaviors and assisting families in developing a strategy for managing problems that may occur after the intervention is completed. Functional Family Therapy has been cited as a Blueprints Program for Violence Prevention. These programs have proven to effectively reduce adolescent violent crime, aggression, delinquency and other behaviors such as substance abuse, truancy and running away. Read More.

Gillis IIS provides immediate, intensive, short-term, in-home crisis intervention and family education services to families whose children are at immediate risk of out-of-home placement. Duration of the intervention is from four to six weeks during which time the program provides an in-home specialist who is available to the family 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Read More.

Pact is an innovative and evidence-based program that offers in-home, crisis oriented services to children, families and individuals struggling with mental illness. PACT services are designed to preserve the child’s and family’s integrity and prevent costly and frightening hospitalization and out of home placement. Services include evaluation and assessment, crisis intervention and stabilization, counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy, skills training and follow-up planning. The goal of PACT is to help families develop the skills and supports necessary to help them manage on their one. Read More.

Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC), an alternative to group care, that provides intensive and comprehensive individualized treatment, support, and supervision in a family setting to youth with behavioral or emotional problems.  The MTFC program uses a team approach to treatment - a program supervisor, youth therapist, family therapist, skills coach, and a foster care trainer. Foster parents in the MTFC program implement an individualized, structured program for each youth under the guidance of a program supervisor. While the youth is in the program the family therapist works with the youth’s family to help them prepare for their youth‘s return home. For every youth in the program the aim is to increase pro-social behaviors and decrease problem behaviors, teach the youth new skills for forming relationships with positive peers and adults and for succeeding at school/work, and enhance parenting skills and decrease conflict in the family. Read More.