GENEVA - For nearly half a century - 47 years - TriCity Family Services has been providing counseling services for thousands of individuals and hundreds of families and couples in Batavia, Geneva, and St. Charles.

The nonprofit organization's counselors, which now number 38 in full and part-time roles, have guided troubled marriages and troubled teens and helped guide families through crises. Its website lists various services, from anger management to workshops for children whose parents are getting divorced.

Batavia resident Jim Otepka has been at the helm for 25 years. As the agency's third director, Otepka spoke about the impact the agency has had on local families. 

Starting in 1967 as the TriCity Family Project, it truly was a cutting-edge model of how to deliver affordable quality family therapy to the local community, he said.

"It's a great privilege to be part of this agency because it belongs to the community," Otekpa said. "We were founded at a very grassroots level by wonderful community volunteers, and we have been supported incredibly by the community through the years."

One of the agency's roles is to create community, particularly for families who might feel disconnected, he said.

"We hope we are a link or a way of connecting them to this community," Otepka said.

One measure of the success in its work is in updates from past clients, he said. 

"I often hear of their children, and sometimes even their grandchildren," Otepka said.

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As Otepka begins his 26th year leading the agency this year, 2014 also marks the 25th year of its Wilderness Challenge program.

The program takes a group of 30 teens - originally those at risk of a difficult transition from middle school to high school - who take a six-day, five-night canoeing and camping trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, 1.4 million acres of forests interconnected lakes and waterways.

The trip was expanded to include students making the transition from ninth grade to 10th grade. Participants leave today. With bus travel, the trip is a total of eight days.

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