Who We Are, What We Do, and Why

Muslims in the United States are experiencing a variety of social welfare, mental health, behavioral health, marital and family problems. Family and marital problems continue, hunger and homelessness continue, other challenges continue to face our youth each and everyday, our disabled and elderly continue to need support. The formerly incarcerated have nowhere to turn when they reenter society and as practicing Muslims want to make a new start in life. We are facing a crisis because of the lack of Muslim counselors and the lack of mainstream providers knowledgeable of best practices with Muslims. We need social workers and mental health professionals in our full time Islamic schools. We need volunteers, paraprofessionals and professionals who can work with Muslims facing a variety of challenges everyday.

The Islamic Social Services Association, Inc. (ISSA-USA) envisions a spiritually and culturally competent social service network that ensures the highest quality of life possible for every individual, family, and community. 

The mission of ISSA-USA is to build a network of professional, paraprofessional and volunteer social service and mental health providers; and to enhance their capacity through education, training, technical assistance, research, mentorship and collaboration.

Our approach is multifaceted and includes a focus on the secular and other faith providers, Muslim community members, imams, community leaders and professionals as well as promotion of cross-cultural awareness among Muslims. ISSA-USA offers a range of training and capacity building resources for Muslim, other faith and secular communities that facilitate our approach.

1. Provide training programs for imams, community leaders, Muslim, secular and other faith professionals and paraprofessionals.
2. Provide consultation and serve as a liaison with secular and other faith social service and mental health providers.
3. Encourage Muslim students to major in professional education in the fields of social work, counseling, marriage and family therapy, psychology and psychiatry.
4. Encourage and facilitate the publication of research about social service and mental health issues concerning Muslims and to serve as a clearinghouse for resource material.

ISSA-USA's methodology is multifaceted and includes a focus on mainstream providers, Muslim community members, imams, community leaders, human services students and professionals. Additionally the plan promotes cross-cultural awareness among Muslims, the coordination of zakat and sadaqa collection and distribution on the local level, the development of strategic alliance and partnerships and the investment in qualitative and quantitative, evidence based human service research.