Who We Support
Family Circle serves family members affected by a loved one’s mental-health challenge. You do not need to be in crisis yourself, and your loved one does not need to be in treatment, for you to reach out.
A partner often becomes the coordinator of everything at once: appointments, finances, childcare, and the emotional weather of the house. Many describe feeling married to a situation rather than to a person, and feeling guilty for thinking it. We support partners with practical help, education about what they are seeing, and a place to be asked how they are doing.
Parents of an unwell child, at any age, carry a particular kind of exhaustion: constant vigilance, difficult decisions made with incomplete information, and a sense that they should have seen it earlier. We help parents understand options, prepare for conversations with providers, and keep the rest of the household functioning.
Children in these households usually know something is wrong and are rarely given language for it. Their reactions show up as sleep trouble, stomach aches, clinginess, or slipping grades rather than as words. We help families explain what is happening in age-appropriate terms, and we make sure children are included in care packages and in the family's plan.
Siblings are often the quietest people in the house. Some become caretakers far too early; others withdraw because attention is elsewhere. We deliberately look for the sibling who is not asking for anything.
Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and close friends frequently step in to hold a family together and then burn out unnoticed. Support is available to them too.
Sometimes what a family needs is not individual support but help functioning together again: restoring routines, reopening communication, and rebuilding an ordinary week after an extraordinary one.
Family Circle provides family support, education, resources, and referrals. Family Circle is not an emergency or crisis response service and does not replace professional medical or mental health care. If you or someone else is experiencing an immediate emergency, contact emergency services or an appropriate crisis resource in your area.
