Agency History

"Dear Family Welfare Society,
I do not know if you can help me or not, but I hope you can. I am one of those many unfortunate women who married young and made the awful mistake of marrying a ne'er do well. I have five children and about every four or five months we go on a diet -- compelled by poverty. My oldest child, age eight, has never been to school. It nearly kills me. What I want to know is, is there any organization or society that will protect me and my children when I try to rise up out of poverty and suffering that is so needless? It is the start that is hard."
- From a letter received by the Family Welfare Society in 1925.

1925		Founded as the Family Welfare Society, the first Tulsa agency devoted to providing relief and casework for families in need.
1944		Merged with the Children's Service Bureau, formed in 1931, to become Family & Children's Service (F&CS). Expanded its mission to include serving neglected and disadvantaged children.
1952		Granted full membership in the Family Service Association of America and shifted the bulk of its work to family counseling and adoption placements.
1961		Instrumental in the formation of the Timothy Varick Child Center.
1966		Established its first satellite office in North Tulsa to provide outreach, prevention and counseling services for families in destitute neighborhoods.
1969		Developed and operated the South Haven Community Center until June 1976.
1971		Opened first branch office in West Tulsa.
1973		Assumed the One-to-One Volunteer Service, which later became Big Brothers and Sisters of Tulsa; it then spun off in 1983 to become an independent organization.
1974		Expanded counseling and family life education programs.
1975		Sunshine Home Health Services established as a homemaker home health aide program to keep elderly in their homes and to support mothers in the home who were temporarily unable, due to illness, to care for their children.
1976		Foster care and adoption services provided since 1931 were discontinued.
1979		Initiated annual professional development program for staff, bringing in nationally-known, renowned trainers in family therapy.
1981		Established the first comprehensive Family Sexual Abuse Treatment Program in Oklahoma to provide therapeutic services to sexually abused children and their families.
1982		Family Mental Health Center, established by F&CS in 1982, became an independent agency in 1986.
1986		Gail Lapidus was named Executive Director of F&CS, the first woman to serve in that position in the agency's history.
1989		Developed CHOICES, an award-winning delinquency prevention and life skills training program for high-risk youth in Tulsa's public housing complexes.
1990		The agency's first major special event fundraiser, Black Tie Bingo, was held.
1991		Expansion of satellite offices to surrounding metropolitan communities.
1992		Initiated the first home-based family preservation program in Oklahoma. F&CS continues to be the primary provider of home-based services in Tulsa County.
1993		First replication site for Families and Schools Together program. Rapid expansion of school-based services
1994		Initiated the first Helping Children Cope With Divorce program in Oklahoma. This model education program for divorcing parents is now court-mandated in nine Oklahoma counties.
1998		Began partnering with the Community Action Project of Tulsa County to provide social services for Head Start and First Start families. This innovative collaboration has been recognized as the first of its kind in the United States.
1999		At the request of the Tulsa Area United Way, assumed responsibility for literacy services previously operated through the Tulsa Literacy Coalition.
2000		Initiated capital campaign to raise funds for a new central office facility, technology and endowments.
2001		At the request of the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, created F&CS Mental Health Care, Inc. to provide outpatient mental health services for indigent mentally ill adults formerly served by Parkside.
2002		Moved into a new 30,000 square foot, state-of-the-art Central Office featuring a child- and family-friendly architectural design; 650 S. Peoria Ave.
2004		For the first time in agency history, number of employees exceed 300 and budget grew to $16 million.
2005		Changed the agency’s historic family logo to a floating butterfly with the words “Life Changing” placed under the name Family & Children’s Services to better reflect the agency’s promise to the community. In November, began a yearlong celebration of 80 years of service to the Tulsa community.
2006		The agency's Mental Health Care program celebrated five years of service to the Tulsa area. Family & Children's Services established a Department of Child Psychiatry as well as onsite pharmacy services to mental health consumers.