Riverside Guidance Center Program

Tapped to Coordinate Domestic Violence Prevention Grant

We have all been horrified by evening news stories of women killed by their abusers.  As part of a national effort to address these grim statistics, Riverside is delighted to announce that the Guidance Center’s Children with Voices: A Child Witness to Violence Program has been selected to coordinate services for a $380,000 federal grant from the Department of Justice’s Office of Violence Against Women. The grant will be administered through the City of Cambridge’s Police Department.  The goal of the program is to reduce and prevent domestic violence homicides and hold offenders accountable by refining and tightening existing relationships between police, courts, and community providers in the communities of Cambridge, Arlington, and Belmont.  

Children with Voices: A Child Witness to Violence Program is one of the Guidance Center services that became part of Riverside with the recent merger of our two organizations.  The program focuses on enhancing and facilitating services for child witnesses of domestic violence and their caretakers. 

As coordinator for the grant, the program is charged with putting together a Domestic Violence High Risk Assessment and Response Team made up of representatives from all three police departments, the courts, community shelters, batterer intervention programs and other community providers.  The Team will identify high risk cases of domestic violence, coordinate protective services, and provide training to all of the police officers in three communities involved.

At a press conference to announce the program, Gerry Leone, Middlesex District Attorney, explained, “We know that combating domestic violence requires a comprehensive approach and that means coming together like we have today, working on the front end to prevent tragedies before they occur.  Dr. Ilana Amrani-Cohen, Director of Children with Voices, added, “We are fortunate to work with community partners who embrace cutting-edge interventions and innovative practices which bring safety and security to families.”

Riverside is proud to be part of this important effort.

Riverside Announces Merger with The Guidance Center to

Strengthen Child and Family Services in Massachusetts

On October 6, 2009 Riverside announced our merger with The Guidance Center, a  child and family service agency serving Cambridge and Somerville. The merger is designed to strengthen child and family services in Massachusetts. The agreement, which closed on Sept. 1, is the result of more than a year-long review of strategic options and partnership discussions. Both Riverside and The Guidance Center are currently in the process of integrating operations for maximum efficiency and will continue to operate existing programs.  With this merger and other new contracts, Riverside has more than doubled the services we provide to youth and families in the last year. 

The Cambridge-based Guidance Center will retain its name, identity and services in Cambridge and Somerville. Its senior management has assumed leadership of Riverside’s newly-created Child and Family Division, which includes all Guidance Center programs. Susan C. Ayers, former Executive Director, will continue in a leadership role as the Director of Development of Child and Family Services for Riverside.

“We are excited about the powerful synergies between our agencies and the major impact we will have on the well being of children and families in more then 60 communities,” said Ms. Ayers. “The Guidance Center’s vibrant commitment to family-centered and community-based work is complimented by Riverside, ensuring that Massachusetts’ children and families will continue to receive the most effective and efficient care.” 

The merger is a proactive step taken to sustain and support tremendous growth The Guidance Center has experienced through new contract awards and research resulting in the production of replicable program models. The partnership with Riverside will increase the capacity and diversify the services provided by The Guidance Center. 

“This strategic partnership, which combines the two organizations’ expertise, resources and long-standing traditions of providing high-quality care to children and families is mutually beneficial for our organizations,” said Riverside President and CEO Scott M. Bock. “Not only do we have similar missions, business models and work cultures, but this new relationship will allow us to expand the reach and influence of our programs in the Commonwealth.”

About The Guidance Center

Founded in 1954, The Guidance Center is the leading provider of innovative, family-centered programs for children and families in Cambridge and Somerville, MA.  The Guidance Center provides an array of integrated services to help children and families cope with developmental, mental health, social and behavioral difficulties, as well as a range of disabilities. The Agency’s integrated continuum of family services supports the goals of all parents: to see their children imagine hopeful futures and grow into healthy, productive members of the community. For additional information, please visit www.gcinc.org.

Needham Bank Successfully Nominates Riverside for Award

from Massachusetts Bankers Association

As a result of a nomination submitted by the Needham Bank, Riverside has been awarded a $1500 community grant from the Massachusetts Bankers Association (MBA) Charitable Foundation.  Riverside was one of 25 non-profits in Massachusetts to receive an award this year.

The MBA Charitable Foundation was established in 1996 to highlight the contributions that Massachusetts-based banks make to deserving organizations. On behalf of the banking industry, the Foundation makes gifts annually to deserving causes nominated by member banks. To date the Foundation has dispersed over $900,000 in awards and supporting activities to non-profit organizations.

"Needham Bank's nomination of us for this award from the Massachusetts Bankers Association Charitable Foundation is just the latest example of the Bank's commitment to the people Riverside serves, said Scott M. Bock, Riverside's President/CEO.  "We are pleased to be recognized by the Foundation and thankful to Needham Bank for their continued support."

Riverside Tapped to Provide Mentoring and In-home Therapy Services

Riverside has been selected as one of the human service organizations that will provide Therapeutic Mentoring and In-home Therapy Services to children and families in the Cambridge/Somerville, Central Massachusetts, and Metro Boston areas.  Funded through the Child Behavioral Health Initiative, these new services will be available to eligible youth under the age of 21 who are covered by MassHealth and their families.  They represent the latest phase in the Commonwealth’s efforts to improve access to community resources for youth with mental health issues.

Therapeutic Mentoring is designed to help youth develop specific independent life skills as part of an overall treatment plan.  For example, a mentor working with a teenager eager to find an after school job, but with a phobia about taking public transportation, might help them map out the bus route to the mall and ride with them a few times until they become comfortable with the journey.  Or, a mentor might help a young girl, paralyzed with anxiety around making decisions, learn how to evaluate her options in order to register for college classes.

The goal of In-home Therapy is to maintain youth in the community, rather than in a hospital or residential program, by offering short-term intensive counseling in the home.  The clinical team will work to stabilize the current situation and, if necessary, provide follow-up or referrals to other services.

Riverside is already providing services as part of the Child Behavioral Health Initiative through our two Community Service Agencies and Emergency Service Programs.

Riverside to Lead New Employment Collaborative

Riverside was recently selected as the Lead Agency for the Regional Employment Collaborative serving South Central Massachusetts.  As a result of this new contract, we will receive up to $500,000 over a three year period to develop the Central Mass Regional Employment Collaborative.  The goal of the Collaborative is to increase the successful recruitment and retention of workers with disabilities.

Riverside is one of 5 agencies state wide to have been designated a Regional Lead Agency.  The University of Massachusetts Medical School and The University of Massachusetts Boston, in collaboration with the Commonwealth’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services, recently announced a total of $2.5 million awarded to these lead agencies via a grant from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 

Located across the state, the Collaboratives will bring together the work of non-profit employment services agencies, regional state disability and workforce and economic development offices, and private industry partners in order to improve employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. The Collaborative Riverside has been tapped to lead will target 38 southern Worcester County communities. 

Dr. Jean McGuire, Assistant Secretary for Disability Policy and Programs at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services, explained that all of the lead agencies “has proposed innovative and effective approaches to improving the employment rate of individuals with disabilities.”  We are delighted to have been recognized for our long history of assisting individuals with mental illness and other disabilities to find and retain meaningful employment. 

New Contracts for Riverside Emergency Services

Add New Towns and Services

Riverside’s two psychiatric Emergency Services Programs recently received new contracts that include some exciting changes.  The changes are both geographical – adding 12 more towns in South Worcester County – and programmatic. 

Our Emergency Service teams will become more mobile – seeing more adults and children at their homes, schools and other community settings, and fewer in hospital emergency rooms.  We’ll be able to offer additional services to children and young adults in crisis and will be able to spend more time helping to stabilize their situation.  Our Crisis Stabilization Programs, which provide brief overnight stays in community settings, will be expanding their staffing to include nursing staff and more psychiatry time.  We believe this expansion will give people a viable alternative to psychiatric hospitalizations when possible.

In order to meet the needs of the residents of the new communities we will be serving, we will be subcontracting with Harrington Memorial Hospital and its G.B. Wells Human Services Center.  By utilizing the Hospital’s psychiatric emergency team, we will be able to access clinicians familiar with the area and with the Spanish language fluency made necessary by the region’s large Hispanic population.    

For many, Emergency Services Programs represent the “front door” into an unfamiliar mental health system.  Mike Rubin, Psy.D., Director of Riverside Emergency Service in the Blackstone Valley Area, is delighted that the new contracts will allow us to give Riverside a “broader array of resources to help us maintain people in the community whenever possible and avoid unnecessary hospitalizations.”  In short, Mike is pleased that, once they come in our “front door,” we will be able to help individuals and families get on the right path to find the services they really need.

We’re Expanding Services to Youth and Families

Riverside was recently awarded a new children’s services contract to be administered by the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership (MBHP).  With this contract, we become the “Community Service Agency” (CSA) for 21 communities including Newton, Needham, Norwood, Dedham, Waltham, Lexington and Arlington.  In our role as CSA, Riverside will both facilitate access to care and coordinate services for youth with serious emotional disturbance and their families.

The contract is the result of a landmark class action lawsuit on behalf of a teenager covered by MassHealth and in need of mental health services.  The outcome of the case, which hinged on a lack of adequate community resources for youth with mental health issues, led to the development of the Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative and a commitment from the state to help children and families receive the help they need.  The changes initiated represent a significant redesign in the way public sector behavioral health services for youth are delivered.

Riverside service teams will work with individual families, on a case by case basis, to determine the help they need and want and to coordinate the necessary care.  In addition, we will provide the services of Family Partners, individuals whose families have faced similar challenges, to provide support and help them navigate through the behavioral healthcare system.

As Jon Jaffe, Director of Riverside’s Family and Behavioral Health Division explained, “This is wonderful for the organization.  Riverside has worked hard to serve children and their families in many different ways and to be a critical resource for the communities we serve.  This contract is an extension of the services we provide and allows us to expand our presence.”