HISTORY:
From its founding in 1898 as an organization of boys' clubs, Bergen Family Center has developed into the County's oldest continuously operating family service agency. The Woman's Club of Englewood, who started the boys organization, added a day nursery in 1900 which launched a total family-supportive mission.
For the next several decades the agency operated under a number of different names and in varied locations, becoming the Social Service Federation in the 1920s. The 1950s saw a spinoff of the clinical counseling and family advocacy departments into a separate entity, the Family Service of Bergen County headquartered in Hackensack. The original Federation continued to provide neighborhood-based programming in Englewood.
In 1997 the two organizations reunited and five years later took the name of Bergen Family Center, better reflecting our commitment to the diverse needs of our county's families.
From Paula Tenebruso about BFC: There's 3 agencies funded to do this work in Bergen County and one just closed its doors due to lack of funding. We need support more than ever. The reason I believe in it so much is that we go out and do a lot of community outreach and education. We test people for HIV at 2 am in parking lots. As a result we had 20 people test positive this past year. It's almost double what the county health dept tested. So we are really making a difference. If we weren't out there I believe these 20 young people would not know they were positive and potentially would be getting more sick and spreading the virus to others.
The sooner we can get people into care the better. I believe it should be a part of everyone's yearly health check and just maybe that will put an end to the spread of HIV and AIDS. We link people into medical care, support services and provide mental health counseling for free. Our clients must be unable to afford care by other means/ insurance. Sadly people are still dying because of the shame and stigma associated. They don't get tested. My client's nephew just died last month at 26 years old. He never told anyone until he was in ICU a week before he died. That never had to happen.
Please help spread the word.
Would love to have people who don't know about our agency come and learn about
it. BFC does a lot of therapy with victims of violent crimes, sexually abused
children and domestic violence. We provide services in English and Spanish. It's
a great little agency that does tremendous work!
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