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Counseling Center Needs to Reach More to Keep Grant

(The Howard County Times) --

By:  Nate Sandstrom

Faced with losing a major funding source at the end of the year, a nonprofit community counseling office in North Laurel is teaming with other agencies to expand services and attract more clients and donors.

Family and Children's Services opened its North Laurel office in January 2004, offering counseling services for new parents, bullied teens and children of elderly parents, among others, backed by a grant of more than $400,000 from the nonprofit The Horizon Foundation.

However, the grant expires at the end of the year, and Horizon officials have not guaranteed to pledge new dollars unless the number of people using the office increases. The office has handled about 17 ongoing cases over the past few months, said Richard Krieg, president of The Horizon Foundation.

In an effort to increase the number of people using the center, Family and Children's Services has added new agencies - Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center, the Domestic Violence Center, Foreign-born Information and Referral Network, or FIRN, and the Community Action Council.

Krieg called the additions a "very positive development."

"Most important, you need to have everyone sitting down and talking about it," he said, adding that he's seen a renewed coordination effort not seen in several years, including better marketing.

"What I've seen is far more marketing go out," Krieg said, making him "guardedly optimistic" that the clients will visit the new Laurel "one-stop shop" for counseling services.

Howard County officials have also expressed support for the project, he said.

People using the center "are picking up some, but they are still not where we would like them to be," District Director Pat Thompson said.

Thompson said North Laurel center employees will work at the Howard County community policing festival Aug. 1 at the Whiskey Bottom Shopping Center to increase awareness for the center.

Low usage has frustrated officials who say they know there are many in the community who need the aid.

Counseling services were among the needs targeted in Howard County Human Services Master Plan. That document outlines improving parenting skills, child development, health care and substance abuse treatment for those with and without insurance as county-wide goals.

More than 300 people who could take advantage of the programs at the counseling center attended the annual Howard County Health Department's Family Health Expo in the Savage-Laurel area, Krieg said.

Increasing users will take more than marketing, Thompson said. Gaining trust within the community "may take some time," she said.

Despite the challenges, she remains positive.

"We all have to work together. We're all in the same community and we all have the same goals," Thompson said.

E-mail Nate Sandstrom at Nate Sandstrom@patuxent.com