#MergerMondays: Trauma-Informed Care
In service sectors like behavioral health and trauma support, collaboration can help organizations deepen their reach, simplify access to care, and bring comprehensive services under one roof. Today’s updates highlight two organizations that have chosen to unite, combining long-standing strengths to better serve their communities with healing, connection, and dignity.
In Southern Illinois, Human Support Services (HSS) and Caritas Family Solutions announced a planned merger intended to strengthen service networks throughout the region. HSS has provided comprehensive behavioral health support in Monroe County since 1973, and Caritas, founded in 1947, has expanded over decades to offer senior support, counseling, and developmental disability programs across Southern Illinois. Leaders from both organizations emphasized that the merger will combine resources and reputations without disrupting core programs, allowing them to build capacity and maintain high-quality care across a broader service footprint. While full financial integration will take place over the coming fiscal year, the intention is to enhance stability, share expertise, and improve the ability to respond to community needs in ways neither could alone.
In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, three nonprofits — The Compass Center, Family Service Inc., and Move to Heal — are completing their merger, creating the region’s first fully integrated healing agency under a new name, Solace. This consolidation brings together crisis intervention for domestic and relational abuse, therapeutic family support, and movement-based healing programs at one location. By streamlining access to these services, Solace aims to eliminate gaps in care and reduce the number of times individuals must repeat their stories to different providers. Once settled, the organization expects to annually serve roughly 1,000 people through crisis intervention, 900 clients in clinical therapy, and 100 youths through trauma-informed healing arts, while also reaching hundreds through community education and prevention work.
Both mergers show how thoughtful alignment can create new pathways for care, strengthen organizational resilience, and make it easier for people to find the support they need. We celebrate these collaborations for what they unite, and for the expanded possibilities they create leading to more coordinated access, more community connection, and more lives touched with healing and hope.
Read more about each merger here:
https://www.republictimes.net/nonprofit-merger-explained/
https://www.dakotanewsnow.com/2025/08/12/non-profits-merge-offer-broader-care-one-location/
