Family Service has been in existence as a service organization in this community since 1929, starting out in the basement of St. John’s Episcopal Church, staffed by volunteers who provided emergency assistance and later "friendly visiting" to people who needed temporary help with their financial problems or someone to talk to because of loneliness, etc. As our whole social structure became more complex the agency had to hire staff trained in counseling to deal with the multiple problems individuals, couples and families faced. In 1979 at the request of the local United Way Board of Directors, Family Service merged with the Sexual Assault Information Center. This merger brought one staff person, funded by the VISTA Program (Volunteers In Service to America). The Family Service Board made a commitment to the United Way Board and to the community to continue the Sexual Assault Service Program of rape intervention and to expand treatment services to other sexual abuse issues, incest, non-familial sexual assault and offenders, adult and juvenile. Over the years we have done that with the help of a number of government grants and the United Way. Funding for sexual assault services by government grants has become more and more restricted as the federal government cuts back on human service funding and as the state’s economy has dictated less funding for human service needs. Over the years as the demand for sexual assault services has increased so has the demand for the traditional family counseling issues of marital, parent-child, total family, divorce adjustment, individual and personal problems. In fact, with the economy in trouble and down-sizing continuing, families are experiencing more trouble. The increased stress of making a living with both parents working, single parents, and the loss of close family support systems, the increased demands on parents and on children to adjust in the more hectic, stressful times can be overwhelming. We continue our educational training of staff to develop new approaches to issues of conventional families as well as for the growing family issues of one parent families, blended families, and also families and individuals with different life styles.