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Director of child services agency stepping down

Pantagraph - 1/25/2017

Jan. 25--NORMAL -- The founder and executive director of an agency that helps Central Illinois children in crisis is stepping down after 25 years.

Lynn Willard said Tuesday she is retiring as executive director of Normal-based ABC Counseling & Family Services, effective June 30. But the licensed clinical professional counselor and licensed clinical social worker will continue to see clients.

"I'll be 64 in April," said Willard, of Roanoke, who has worked in human services since 1975. "I feel that we need younger leadership."

But Willard is proud of her "hybrid agency" that, since 1992, has provided infant adoption and specialized evaluation and treatment to child sexual abuse victims and offenders.

"ABC Counseling has been a great partner for our agency in providing services to kids and families," said Judy Brucker, executive director of the McLean County Children's Advocacy Center (CAC), which provides short-term therapy for child sexual abuse victims. "We transition the children who need longer therapy to ABC."

"Lynn has a total commitment to this client population -- the victims and the perpetrators of child abuse -- to get them the services they need to be successful young adults," Brucker said. "ABC Counseling provides a unique and very necessary service to this community."

Willard had worked for other Central Illinois agencies doing Hispanic outreach, adoption services and child sexual abuse victim and offender treatment when she started ABC with a $45,000 loan and one employee -- herself.

Now the agency has 23 full- and part-time employees; locations in Normal, Decatur, Champaign, Springfield, Peoria and Pekin; and a $1.2 million operating budget.

It has helped 642 clients in the fiscal year that ended June 30. Twenty-two were funded through ABC's scholarship program, 85 paid a reduced fee based on income and the rest were paid for through insurance or a state agency.

Willard said she and her colleagues have kept the agency going amid delayed state funding by running a lean operation and by diversifying. "We get referrals from so many places so we're not just dependent on DCFS (state Department of Children and Family Services) checks," she said.

"The message I have is, whether we are working with a child sexual abuse victim or a child with sexual behavior problems, we have to remember that they are children," Willard said. "We can't treat them as mini-adults."

Along the way, Willard started a Survivors of Suicide Support Group and became an American Red Cross mental health volunteer, helping survivors of disaster such as Hurricane Katrina. She will continue in both roles.

"She started this organization from scratch and built it up," said ABC board President David Stokes. "The community has benefited from her will to help kids."

Following a search process, the board hopes to have a new executive director hired by late spring, Stokes said.

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Follow Paul Swiech on Twitter: @pg_swiech

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