Arlene Happach is CEO of The Children's Home Association of Illinois in Peoria. She's been with the organization since 1979, having held the position of executive vice president until last month.

Happach taught psychology and human social behavior classes at Illinois Central College for five years and worked as a family therapist and as director of the Mental Health Center of LaSalle Country prior to joining Children's Home.

She has a Bachelors degree in psychology, a Masters degree in clinical psychology, and an MBA-all from Bradley University. Happach has co-authored articles for the publications Psychological Reports, Developmental Psychology, and Psychological Reports.

Happach and her husband live in Peoria and have two adult children.

Tell about your background, schools attended, etc.

I grew up in Chicago. I received a Bachelors degree in psychology from Bradley and went straight on to obtain a Masters degree in clinical psychology. My first job out of school was at P.A.R.C., working as a child development specialist. My husband and I then moved to Princeton, where I worked for a mental health center and counseling program. We returned to Peoria in 1979, and I began my career at Children's Home. After working several years in direct service and program development, I found myself very interested in the business of nonprofit management, and I returned to Bradley to pursue my MBA. I frequently tell others how fortunate I am to be able to use both degrees and skill sets in my job.

You took over as CEO of Children's Home in October. Tell about your responsibilities.

I'm responsible for leading more than 400 staff in providing services to more than 1,800 children and families each year-an awesome responsibility. Here's why I'm excited about it: first and foremost, my predecessor, Jim Sherman, built an incredible organization I'm proud to lead. Secondly, we have a group of employees who are talented, caring, and invested in making the world a better place for kids and families. Finally, we have a supportive and committed board of trustees that works diligently to help us achieve our goals. I view my primary responsibility as implementing our mission and communicating it to our various constituencies-our clients, our funders, our donors, and our community. Our mission is to "Give children a childhood and a future," and it's my job to make sure we're doing all we can in the best way possible to ensure good stewardship of public and private resources in doing so.

Who or what influenced you to become a psychologist? Why did working with children appeal to you?

I chose psychology as a field of study because I've always been interested in why people do what they do. I was especially interested in how children develop, and after a developmental psychology class, I was hooked. During my time in graduate school, I completed internships at Bradley's Child Study Center and with the Department of Children and Family Services, and I knew then I would have a career working in children's services. Children have so much to teach us about life.

What services does Children's Home offer? What service areas are you seeing more need for?

We have more than 45 different programs, and it's always a challenge to describe them succinctly. We're probably most associated with our live-in group of services. We have residential, group home, and supervised independent living programs for children and adolescents requiring intensive treatment for serious emotional disturbances. Many have been abused or neglected, and most have little or no family contact. We also provide foster care for youths who've been removed from home for abuse or neglect, and we work on permanency for them-either by working to reunify the family or working towards adoption if reunification isn't possible. Children's Home Kiefer School provides day programs for youths who require more intensive special education services than their local school districts can provide. Children are bused in from surrounding communities to attend school where, in addition to academics, they receive counseling and other support services. We also have a special school for youths returning to their community from the Department of Corrections.

Our largest and least well-known group of programs provides services to children and families in their homes, schools, and communities. We serve pregnant and parenting teens, youth at risk of incarceration, children and adolescents at risk of or returning from psychiatric hospitalization, and families on the brink of disruption. We provide after school programs and other preventive services in hope of reducing the likelihood of future problems.

A newer initiative we're especially excited about is our Leaders of Tomorrow program we do at Manual High School. We worked with the school to identify 20 incoming freshman at highest risk of dropping out. We work intensively with this group of students on academics, life development, and community service. The original group is now completing their junior year, and we still have 19 of them in school and doing well. As for growing need, think of the impact we could have if we could work with more of these high-risk students and their families at an even earlier age. The more we know about risk factors and the likelihood of subsequent problems, the more we can do in prevention and diversion programs.

Tell about the history of Children's Home.

In 1866, a group of civic-minded women formed the Christian Home Mission. They established a sewing school for young girls and visited families in the community in need of assistance. Nine years later, the first Home of the Friendless opened for homeless women and children. The home moved several times, and in 1919, the building we now occupy on Knoxville Avenue was built as a memorial to Walter Barker by his wife, Mary. Our name was changed to Children's Home in 1935. I find it so interesting that our roots are in working with families in their homes, and that represents so much of what we do now.

Tell how someone might become a resident of Children's Home.

About 65 percent of our residents are referred from Department of Children and Family Services. Other residents come to us with Individual Care Grants from the Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities, referrals from the Department of Corrections, or occasionally from their local school district. Most of the kids who come into our residential program have had multiple placements in foster care and other residential settings.

How has Children's Home changed through the years?

The most obvious change is in the agency's growth. When I began in 1979, we had about 35 employees, and our budget was under $1 million. We had residential programs and a small school. We now have more than 400 staff and a budget of $19 million. We've become much more community-based in our service array and have deliberately sought to develop programs that are preventive in nature. We've tried very hard to be market-oriented and responsive to community needs as they arise. We're much more outcome-focused.

What are the unique challenges facing Children's Home?

There's no shortage of challenges to the nonprofit community in general or to us specifically. First, the kids and families we serve are presenting with much more serious and multiple issues. If you ask five professionals why that is, you'll get five-or more-different answers, but I doubt anyone would disagree with the increased severity and acuity of presenting problems. We're seeing children as young as age three who require major behavioral intervention, and preteens with psychiatric diagnoses we previously didn't see until late adolescence. This requires highly trained staff and ongoing training and development.

Our business costs-utilities, insurance, food, etc.-keep rising; our liability insurance went up 50 percent this year. Yet, our reimbursement rates from the state haven't risen proportionately or, in some cases, at all. There's an increased emphasis on accountability and outcomes, which is as it should be. However, tracking outcomes, particularly long-term results, requires increasing levels of sophistication and major investments in technology. Government funding is too often categorical, which restricts who can be served in which programs and often creates gaps in service. The state's fiscal crisis makes predictability of funding difficult.

What are the misperceptions, if any, regarding the clientele of Children's Home? Of the financial support for Children's Home?

Probably the biggest misperception is that we're an orphanage. Although many of the youth we serve don't have active family support, the old notion of the orphanage was replaced by the foster care system many years ago, and our live-in programs are treatment-oriented. Also, most people are unaware of the scope of our community-based programs, where we served more than 1,200 kids and families last year. As for misperceptions of financial support, the community is probably unaware of how much impact private contributions have on our children. This year, we'll raise more than $1 million to support our services to central Illinois children and families.

How supportive is the community of Children's Home? What additional support would you like to see?

The community has been incredibly supportive of us. The generosity of our friends and neighbors is especially touching in light of the many worthwhile places for the charitable dollar in Peoria and taking into account today's economy. I'm particularly impressed with the number of people who get their children involved in contributing. We've been the recipient of several kids' birthday parties, where gifts were given to us in honor of the birthday child. What a philanthropic message this sends to the next generation. As for additional support, I'd love to see more folks get involved as mentors or offer their special talents to the children and teens we serve. There truly is no greater way to make a difference.

What would the community be surprised to know about Children's Home?

People are often surprised to know how large and diverse we are. We've made a concerted effort in the last couple of years to let the community know more about us, so I hope there wouldn't be many surprises.

In your experience with Children's Home and as a psychologist, what advice do you have for parents in helping their children achieve good mental health and a positive childhood?

We're learning more every day about early brain development. We know so much happens prenatally and in the first two years of life. So my first piece of advice would be to take very good care of the developing fetus. We know now that nutrition, substance use, and significant stress during pregnancy all have serious impacts on later mental health. There's a great deal of research that indicates during infancy, the foundations of good mental health are laid, and the primary vehicle through which this occurs is attachment. The nurturing of a committed and consistent caregiver actually impacts brain chemistry. So the second piece of advice is to love and nurture your infant, which should be easy, but unfortunately for some families, is complicated by other life stressors.

Other parenting techniques that promote good mental health include clear and consistent communication about values and expectations, predictability in the behavior-consequence chain-the knowledge that certain behaviors lead to predictable consequences, natural or otherwise, and promotion of self-worth and independence by allowing children to do things for themselves even when they make mistakes. The specific family composition is far less important than having a relationship with a significant adult who's invested in the child.

What's the number one danger for today's children?

That's a difficult question. I'd say the worst thing that can happen to a specific child is to be born into a situation where the significant adults are ill equipped to attend to the child's needs-for whatever reason. As for today's children in the aggregate, I guess the number one danger is a society that doesn't value its children as much as it should.

What's next for Children's Home?

Our board and leadership team will get together this fall and update our strategic plan, as we do every three years. We'll take a hard look at what we already do and what we'd like to do, and we'll try to predict emerging needs and trends for our services. We'll continue to develop programs based on sound prevention principles, and we'll continue to seek collaborative partnerships with institutions and agencies in the community. We'll work hard to articulate and measure the impact we have and to modify our treatment techniques as we analyze our outcome data.

Anything else you'd like our readers to know?

Next year, my husband and I will celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. We have two wonderful sons: Shane, 26, and Jeremy, 23. I said earlier that I believe children have so much to teach us, and these two continue to teach me every day. TPW