How a Church Works with a Family Agency

A congregation that meets a family in crisis does two things at once: it offers the help it can give itself, and it hands the rest to a professional service. The church keeps the meals, the rides, the nursery, and the follow-up calls. The agency keeps the counseling, the crisis work, and the case file. Neither one replaces the other, and the families do better when both are in the room. A church that works with a group like family service agency is joining a line of work that is older than most of the congregations now doing it.

What does a church hand to a professional service?

A church hands over anything that requires a license, a clinical record, or a legal duty. That includes individual and family counseling, domestic violence work, chemical dependency treatment, and any case that may end in court. It also includes cases where a member of the congregation is the person causing harm. A pastor who tries to counsel an abusive spouse is not protecting the family. A deacon who tries to manage a suicidal teenager alone is not protecting the teenager.

The handoff is not abandonment. It is a division of labor that has held for generations. In central Indiana, one of the oldest agencies doing that work began as the Indianapolis Benevolent Society, founded by local families on Thanksgiving Day in 1835. It later became Family Service of Central Indiana, Inc., a private nonprofit that described its purpose as preserving and strengthening families in times of crisis, change, and growth. Its offices sat at 615 N. Alabama St., Suite 320, Indianapolis, and its funding came from United Way, public contracts, user fees, and private gifts.

How does a referral actually work?

A referral starts with a name and a phone number, not a diagnosis. The church volunteer who first hears the need writes down what the family said, in the family's own words, and passes it to the pastor or the deacon on duty. That person calls the agency and asks one question: can you take this, or should we call someone else? The agency answers. If it can take the case, the church steps back from the clinical part and stays in the practical part.

A good referral includes four things. First, the family's consent to be contacted. Second, a short description of what is happening, without speculation. Third, the practical barriers: no car, no phone, no childcare, no English. Fourth, the church's own offer, stated plainly: we can bring supper on Tuesdays, we can drive to appointments, we can watch the children during the session. The agency does the rest.

Who volunteers, and what do they do?

Volunteers do not do clinical work. They do the work that makes clinical work possible. In the agency records from the mid-2000s, the volunteer pages listed activities that any congregation would recognize: driving, tutoring, office help, event support, and mentoring. A church can staff a waiting room. A church can run a supper before an evening parenting class so parents do not have to choose between eating and attending. A church can keep a crib in the nursery so a young mother can keep an appointment.

The rule is simple. Volunteers give time, presence, and practical help. They do not read case files, they do not sit in on sessions, and they do not report back to the congregation about what they saw. Confidentiality is what makes the referral possible in the first place.

What should a church never try to do alone?

A church should never try to do alone anything that carries a duty to report, a risk of harm, or a need for a licensed clinician. That includes suspected abuse or neglect of a child or an older adult, threats of violence, active addiction, and any situation where a member of the congregation is the person causing the harm. In those cases the church's job is to call the agency and, where the law requires it, the state.

A church should also never try to do alone the long-term financial support of a family in crisis. A congregation can pay one electric bill. It cannot carry a family for a year. That is what public contracts, United Way funding, and sliding-scale fees are for. The agency exists so that the church does not have to choose between helping and surviving.

How is the work paid for?

Family service agencies are funded from several streams, and a church that understands them can help. The streams include United Way allocations, government contracts, fees paid by users on a sliding scale, and private donations. Some states offer tax credits for donations to certain programs; in Indiana, the agency's pages noted NAP tax credits, with half of the credit returned to the donor. A church that cannot give cash can give space, volunteers, and referrals, and those count.

A congregation can also host. A parenting class, a support group, or a counseling session can meet in a church basement at no cost to the agency. That in-kind gift is often worth more than a small cash donation, because it removes a line from the agency's budget.

What does the church keep?

The church keeps the part that only a church can do. It keeps the meals, the rides, the nursery, the prayer, and the long attention that a family needs after the crisis is over. It keeps the knowledge of who is new in town, who lost a job, who is caring for a parent with dementia. It keeps the follow-up call three weeks later, when the agency's file has closed but the family is still there.

That division of labor is not a compromise. It is the way the work has always been done. The agency brings the license, the record, and the clinical training. The congregation brings the building, the volunteers, and the name of the family that needs help. A church that knows what to hand over, and what to keep, serves its town better than one that tries to do everything itself.

Sources

• Family Service of Central Indiana, Inc., pages captured by the Wayback Machine, 2003 to 2006: https://web.archive.org/web/*/family-service-inc.org
• Council on Accreditation, the accrediting body named in the agency's own pages: https://coanet.org/
• United Way of Central Indiana, the funding partner named in the agency's own pages: https://www.uwci.org/

Checked by the desk on 2026-09-16.