About Us


Since the fall of Saigon in 1975, Bethany Christian Services has provided language-appropriate and culturally-sensitive services to refugee populations. The Unaccompanied Minor program helps resettle youth with no parents or guardians, PARA resettles families, and Refugee Outreach and Assistance Referral (ROAR) helps refugees who have been here in the United States for more than five months but who are still experiencing problems.

Bethany Christian Services began serving refugee children from Southeast Asia after 1975. Initial services were foster care placements. Since then:

  • Bethany's Refugee Services program has served over 600 children from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Liberia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Cuba, Albania, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Bosnia, China, Sudan, and Afghanistan.
  • 1982 - Through its public/private sector contract to provide foster care services for Kent County Family Independence Agency (FIA), the Refugee Services program began providing services to abused and neglected children in immigrant and refugee families.
  • 1985 - The Refugee Services program entered into a contract with Freedom Flight Refugee Center, a Church Wold Services affiliate, to provide crisis intervention, individual counseling, and group counseling to Amerasian youth and their families resettling in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
  • 1989 - Bethany received a grant from the Office of Refugee Resettlement to provide mental health assessments and coordination of services to Amerasian families. Through this contract, Bethany Christian Services provided and coordinated services to over 300 Amerasians and their family members in Kent and Ottawa counties.
  • 1992 - Bethany entered into a contract with World Vision to provide volunteer services to Amerasians and their families in Kent and Ottawa counties.
  • 1995 - Bethany began collaborating with Kent County Community Mental Health and Ottawa County Community Mental Health to meet the mental health needs of refugees requesting services from community agencies.
  • 1997 and 1999 - Bethany received ORR funding to serve refugees who experienced acculturation and post-settlement trauma leading to serious mental health problems.
  • 2000 - Bethany became the largest Unaccompanied Minor Program in the United States after resettling 107 Sudanese youth.
  • 2002 - The Church World Services affiliate, Program Assisting Refugee Acculturation (PARA), joined Bethany to provide for the resettlement of refugee families.