Adler Community Health Services

Opened in 1972, the Dreikurs Psychological Services Center, named after one of Adler University’s founders, Rudolf Dreikurs, stood as the institution’s first mental health training clinic, situated in its downtown Chicago campus. The clinic offered mental health and substance use outpatient treatment to the public. Academic program faculty supervised graduate students fulfilling their training requirements there. Though most services were provided on campus, the early 1990s saw the center branching out to provide care within the community. Collaborative training programs were established within the Illinois Department of Corrections (at both Dixon Correctional Center and Illinois Youth Center – St. Charles) and St. Leonard’s Ministries. By 2009, a significant 97% of the care had transitioned from the on-campus clinic to community-based locations. This period marked a pivotal shift in the university’s approach and ethos, resonating deeply with Dr. Alfred Adler’s philosophy of the powerful connection between community and individual health.

In 2010, the on-campus clinic transitioned into Adler Community Health Services (ACHS), adopting a new model that focused on reaching underserved communities by embedding services directly within those areas, rather than requiring individuals to come to the clinic. The first branch under this new structure, the Division of Community Health Chicago, evolved from the reorganization of the Dreikurs Psychological Services Center.

By 2013, ACHS was approached to take over the last remaining training program of the Illinois Department of Corrections at the Illinois Youth Center – St. Charles. This led to the creation of the Division of Juvenile Justice Illinois in 2014. Simultaneously, Adler’s Vancouver campus in British Columbia, Canada saw significant growth in its mental health degree programs. To address the demand for high-quality training placements, the Division of Community Health Vancouver was established in 2018.

n 2019, ACHS was informed by the Illinois Department of Corrections that its contract would end due to a sharp decline in youth incarceration rates through successful youth diversion investment by the State of Illinois. In response, the Division of Juvenile Justice Illinois redefined its mission and, in 2020, became the Division of Teen Wellness and Opportunity, shifting its focus to youth empowerment and success.

By 2024, ACHS decided to eliminate the division structure and consolidate its efforts into a single workforce training center, offering training programs in both Chicago and Vancouver.

Today, ACHS includes 12 full-time clinical positions, one half-time clinical position, and 1 psychology postdoctoral resident. Our workforce training programs annual provide up to 13 psychology doctoral internship, 12 psychology doctoral externship, 6 master of counselling psychology externship, and 4 master of couple and family therapy externship placements. Annually, this dynamic team provides an average of 12,000 hours of direct clinical services and 8,000 hours of clinical support and consultation to our community partner organizations including 4,000 hours of direct supervision to our trainees.

ACHS offers our community partner agencies a full suite of trauma-informed services that can be provided both in-person and through telehealth:

• Individual, couple, and family therapy
• Psychotherapy groups
• Psychological assessment/testing
• Community/staff psychoeducation and prevention programming.
• Program design and evaluation
• Consultation services to our community partner agency
• Community trauma event debriefing and support
• Individual mental health crisis intervention

ACHS does not profit from its clinical training partnerships. ACHS charges a per-day-of-service fee versus a fee-for-service model. This allows partners access to the broad menu of clinical services for one set per-day fee versus a traditional per-use charge for each service. This model allows our community partner sites to flexibly utilize different services as the demands within their community population change.

As practitioners focused on health equity and health justice, ACHS is committed to seeking alternative funding in the form of government and foundation grants, and individual and/or corporate donations. ACHS, in partnership with Adler University’s Office of Institutional Advancement, explores fundraising opportunities that will pay for the contract fees of our community partner sites. If ACHS secures funding that covers a partner’s contract fee, ACHS adjusts the contract terms to decrease or eliminate the unpaid portion of the contract due from the partner that the new funding now covers. ACHS asks our partners to submit a letter to us as to how the partner reinvested the funds into their community/agency that they would have paid ACHS for services. ACHS submits this letter to the funder to demonstrate the additional impact their gift provided to our community partner site.