About LYDIA

"Strengthening families to care for children and caring for children when families cannot."

— LYDIA Mission Statement

At a time when our culture often seems to be coming apart, LYDIA is helping put families back together. Founded as an orphanage in 1916, it has become a successful alternative to state-run foster care and family assistance agencies. LYDIA’s faith-based approach to helping troubled families and children is unique, reaching people in diverse communities with a continuum of clinical and supportive services, including:

  • Safe Families for Children (short-term housing arrangements for children)
  • Foster Care
  • Residential Treatment
  • Learn & Care Preschool
  • LYDIA Urban Academy (non-traditional high schools in Chicago and Rockford)
  • Counseling Services

LYDIA serves children and families in two Illinois locations (Chicago and Rockford), while LYDIA International cares for those in Romania and France, and our Safe Families for Children program has expanded into 80 U.S. cities as well as the U.K., Canada and Kenya. A Christian organization, we extend the truth of Scripture and God’s love to people of all religious, racial, and economic backgrounds. Our professionally trained psychologists, social workers and other staff members address all the important issues that can crush the human spirit and destroy lives, ministering to children and their parents one heart at a time.