Elgin mental health advocate dies at 62
Compassionate, funny, dedicated and a visionary. That's how colleagues describe Lisa LaForge, an Elgin advocate for mental health services for children and families.
LaForge, 62, executive director of the Family Service Association of Greater Elgin Area, died suddenly Thursday in her Elgin home of an unknown cause, said her brother Steven LaForge of Gallaway, Ohio.
"My sister was a committed fighter for her clients in greater Elgin," he said. "She was looking forward to helping the Elgin community for as long as she could."
LaForge also is survived by her parents, Peter and Peggy LaForge of Arlington Heights, and brother Philip LaForge of Tampa, Florida.
Memorial services are pending.
LaForge spent her 36-year career at FSA starting in the adult counseling program as a therapist. She later served as the youth program director, then the director of clinical services and associate director before taking the helm as executive director for the past 16 years.
"She has been really transformative in (advocating for) children and adolescent mental health within our state," said Bernie May, associate director for FSA, which serves more than 3,000 children and families yearly.
LaForge took on a leadership role with the Elgin Human Services Council and earned an Elgin Image Award in 2015. She was instrumental in implementing Screening, Assessment and Support Services (SASS), a state program for children and adolescents experiencing a mental health crisis, in the Elgin area.
"Our agency was one of the first pilot programs," May said. "It now serves about 1,900 kids in that program alone."
FSA received a $600,000 grant from the Illinois Children's Healthcare Foundation in January to expand its school-based mental health program designed by LaForge in 2005. She wrote the grant to expand the program from six schools to 19 schools this year within Elgin Area School District U-46 and Algonquin-based Community Unit District 300.
"Lisa was really passionate about school-based services because it takes away the stigma of going to a mental health service agency," May said.
LaForge had a "wickedly intelligent" sense of humor, as well as being fierce, feisty and compassionate, said Laura Poss, executive director of Geneva-based TriCity Family Services.
In 1996, LaForge was part of a coalition of service providers statewide called Local Area Networks, which coordinated with local schools to provide wraparound services for children and families from marginalized communities, going beyond mental health.
"We literally looked at every domain in their life and supported them," Poss said. "She was one of the leaders of the movement. She was a visionary in that people needed systems of care that worked seamlessly."
LaForge also was instrumental in creating Kane County's Mental Health Juvenile Justice program in 2002.
"That's still a very vital part of the work done out of her agency," Poss said. "She was an amazing mentor and teacher, and that's an important part of who she was."