After a very tough and competitive
bidding process, The Guidance Center was awarded a Community Service
Agency (CSA) contract on March 9, 2009 by the State, which has awarded
twenty-six CSA's across Massachusetts to community based organizations
as a part of the Children's Behavioral Health Initiative (CHBI), a
remedial plan resulting from the 2006 Rosie D. court verdict. The court
case, which was in trial for over five years, sought to restructure
children's mental health system in Massachusetts by incorporating
intensive home-based services, including behavioral health screenings,
assessments, case management, crisis intervention and in-home
therapeutic supports. The state is attempting to adhere to a strict
implementation timeline, which aims to have the plan fully implemented
by June 2009.

The Guidance Center's President and CEO, Susan
Ayers, believes that the plan will take longer than that. "It will roll
out like honey," Ayers said, stating that it will be a year before the
organizations receiving funding feel the full effect of the grants.

The
Guidance Center, which was founded in 1959, provides developmental,
emotional and mental health and services for children from infancy into
young adulthood, as well as intensive family services. The goal of The
Guidance Center is to address the needs of economically and socially
challenged families as well as serving as a liaison between these
families and the multiple social services and agencies that become
involved with families and children with behavioral and mental health
issues. They also provide parenting classes, after-school programs for
both children and their families, and intensive clinical interventions
and developmental therapy.

The center has been featured in
textbooks as a model for community based social work. The Guidance
Center strayed early on from implementing archaic tactics of removing
troubled children from their homes or "parent-ectomies" and instead has
gravitated toward working with the families in their homes on simple
activities such as making dinner and playing board games as a means
toward stabilizing their environments.

The Guidance Center
currently provides services to approximately 120 families within the
Somerville and Cambridge communities. According to Ayers, the number of
families and cases seen by the center is fairly evenly split between
the two communities. With the support of the CSA, the State projects
that this will jump to at least 250 families throughout Cambridge and
Somerville and will be expanding its reach into Burlington, Winchester,
Woburn and Wilmington. The Guidance Center estimates that it affects as
many as 3,500 lives every year.

The CSA has been specifically
awarded to The Guidance Center for its Intensive Family Services, which
deal with troubled adolescents and teenagers and their families.
Candidates for this service are generally classified as Seriously
Emotionally Disturbed (SED). Children, adolescents and teenagers that
are classified as SED have substantial impairments due to emotional or
behavioral disorders that impair their every day life, including their
ability to take care of themselves, attend school or have stable
relationships with their families. The age group that is targeted in
the Intensive Family Services pose the most immediate threat to society
if their disorders go undiagnosed or untreated. There are an estimated
15,000 people in the state of Massachusetts that fall under the SED
classification.

The Guidance Center is comprised of 110
employees, 70 of which are clinical staff, accounting for approximately
80% of their annual budget. Ayers projects that with the help of the
CSA, the center will bring on approximately 25 to 30 new clinical staff
employees, which will significantly increase the scope and depth of
their ability to reach families within the Somerville and Cambridge
communities.