“Help for Today, Hope for Tomorrow – Exploring Mental Illness and Substance Abuse through Art” included paintings, drawings, sculptures, and written/spoken aspects of art created by Family Guidance Center clients. The event was advertised as a “Friend-Raiser” and an opportunity to also provide information about the organization.

Family Guidance Center asked its clients to express, through their art, what hope looks like, through their lens into their experience of hurt or joy, darkness or light, silence or proclamations of a resounding “hear me, I have a voice”.  The exhibit was the culmination of this effort.  Some of the artwork will be displayed at other locations in the coming months.

The Family Guidance Center has been providing behavioral health services to the Warren County community for over 60 years and provides services to over 4,000 individuals each year who are diagnosed with a mental illness or substance use disorder. The individual, their family members and their communities are all impacted by this diagnosis.  Some realize their illness as a result of a crisis, others learn of their illness through their everyday struggles that keep them from living a life free of anxiety, depression or desperation.  Families can be just as fragile as their loved one as they learn how to cope and support their husband, wife, daughter, son, mother or father through a time in their lives when hope is just a word and not a reality.

(Photo left to right, Among the many people taking in the art at the Family Guidance Center’s recent client exhibit are Guidance Center board members Glen Welch of Charter Partners, President, Jeffrey Guidette, Vice President (Retired Sr. VP of BASF Corp), Pastor Peter Bradford, from the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepard in Blairstown, and William Conforti, former Hackettstown councilman).