Big Brothers Big Sisters




Caring Network




Young Parent Support

Mental Health Services

Child & Family’s mental health programs provide the foundation for the agency’s wide range of services to children, adults, and families. This fully licensed mental health clinic provides therapy and assessments for individuals, families, couples, and groups. We offer psychiatric evaluations, and medication monitoring by a psychiatrist.

Adult Behavioral Health Services (ABHS)
This clinic provides a full range of treatment including individuals, families, and couples therapy with various mental health issues. It also offers medication management by an expert group of psychiatrists.

Child Behavioral Health Services (CBHS)
Because the needs of children are often different than adults, we have therapists and psychiatrists specifically trained to work with children who take into account the emotional, physical and developmental needs of adolescents. These professionals understand the needs of children and work with families to ensure successful treatment. Audio interview with Site-Director, Tom Butero...

Community Based Acute Treatment (CBAT)
A short-term (7-10 days) residential treatment model for children ages 4-18 in need of acute crisis stabilization. This 9 bed unit offers psychiatry, clinical social work, case management, and residential and education services. The therapeutic milieu is designed to promote reintegration of the child into his/her family, biological or otherwise. Most of the children originate from Greater New Bedford. However, the program is available to any resident of Massachusetts. To view/print our Parent and Client Handbook, click here. To view/print our Consent To Treatment/Placement Agreement, click here. For a virtual tour of CBAT, click here.

Emergency Mental Health Services

Emergency Services Program (Crisis Center)

Child & Family’s Emergency Services Program (Crisis Center) operates 24 hours a day and provides care for people of all ages in need of emergency mental health counseling. An emergency service clinician evaluates the clients in crisis and arranges appropriate treatment after consultation with a psychiatrist. An experienced master’s level clinician is available seven days a week and there is always a psychiatrist on-site or on-call. FAQs...

Greater New Bedford Trauma Response Network
Child & Family is the lead agency for the Trauma Response Network. There is a trauma response network team available to provide on –site counseling to local citizens who are victims of traumatic life experiences such as; major accidents, large disasters, and acts of violence involving multiple victims. Team members serve on a rotational basis and offer follow-up debriefing sessions for the victims.

Community Crisis Stabilization (CCS)
CCS is a twelve-bed unit that receives patients from our Emergency Services (ES) program and from other ES programs in the area. CCS is for patients who need support, monitoring, and/or medication stabilization, but do not need inpatient admission. Typically, the patients stay for 3 to 10 days prior to discharge back into the community. Child & Family’s CCS is one of the few who see both children and adults. FAQs...

Outreach & Community Counseling

Child & Family’s outreach programs provide support and assistance to children and families. Clinicians provide home-based counseling for clients who are unable to leave their home. Therapists work with clients in school, residential, and employment settings.

Empowering Families for Success (EFS)
This program is designed to meet the needs of families who have children with mental health problems referred by the Department of Mental Health. Most services are provided in a family's home at their convenience. Some of the services include traditional counseling to assistance with homemaking, behavior modification, medication management, respite services and any other type of service that will train and assist the family to address the needs of their children in a non-hospital setting. More...

In-Home Therapy
In-Home Therapy is a structured, consistent, strengths-based therapeutic relationship between professional staff and identified youths and families. Its purpose is to treat youths’ emotional and behavioral health needs, improve families’ ability to provide effective support and promote healthy family function. The treatment team, comprised of a licensed clinician, youth case worker, family and youth, develops treatment and safety plans based on the family’s identified needs and goals. The In-Home Therapy approach applies established psychotherapeutic techniques in intensive family therapy, supplemented by the case worker’s one-on-one contact with the youth, to implement focused interventions. It emphasizes behavioral techniques and encourages development of natural supports to strengthen the family and youth so that therapeutic goals might be met and sustained after team involvement has ended. FAQs...

School-Based Counseling Services
Child & Family offers a school-based counseling program in cooperation with the New Bedford School Department and other area schools. Professional counselors work closely with the students, their families and school staff to provide the highest quality service. We also provide services in school, a setting that is both familiar and comfortable for students, and as a part of their regular school day. Audio interview with Chanda Coutinho, School Based Program Coordinator...

Community Support Youth & Family Services

Big Brothers Big Sisters
Become a volunteer mentor for children between the ages of 7 to 14, who reside between Dartmouth and Wareham. Through a committed one-on-one relationship with a caring individual, children will benefit from the relationship and have assistance to grow into caring, responsible adults. A willingness to commit to one hour a week for a minimum of a year is required to sustain the relationship. To receive more information regarding the program, please contact the program coordinator at (508) 990-0894. FAQs...

Caring Network
The Caring Network is designed to help children between the ages of 4 and 12 who witness violence in their homes, schools, and communities. Counselors help children through the initial trauma, help them develop safety plans in case of future violence, and show them ways to settle conflict and tension without violence. These services are available to children and their families regardless of their ability to pay. Since its inception in 1996, the Caring Network has helped more than 1200 boys and girls. FAQs...

Community Service Agency (CSA) / Intensive Care Coordination (ICC)
A CSA is a community-based organization whose function is to facilitate access to, and ensure coordination of, care for youth with serious emotional disturbance (SED) who require or are already utilizing multiple services or are involved with multiple child-serving systems (e.g., child welfare, special education, juvenile justice, mental health) and their families. More...

Parent Mentor Program
Parent Mentor is a comprehensive educational and advocacy program for families referred by the Department of Social Services. Parent Mentors work with families to learn new and better ways of coping with the challenges of every day life. The focus of the program is to strengthen families at risk for child abuse or neglect. To bring about constructive change, Parent Mentors use a range of methods that include support, guidance, instruction and treatment. The goal is to keep children with their families in order to spare them the trauma of separation and loss. FAQs...

Sexual Abuse Intervention Network (SAIN)
The SAIN Program is designed to reduce the number of interviews and trauma for children who have been a victim of sexual abuse. A team of professionals work together to try and reduce the amount of fact gathering interviews that children have to go through, thereby eliminating further trauma to the child. SAIN team members include the Department of Social Services, the District Attorney’s office, local police departments, the SAIN team coordinator and the social worker and/or therapist working with the family. The team serves 21 cities and towns throughout the Bristol County. This program serves over 300 children per year. FAQs...

Therapeutic Mentoring Services
Therapeutic Mentoring offers structured, one-to-one, strength-based support services between a therapeutic mentor and a youth (up to the age of 21) for the purpose of addressing daily living, social, and communication needs. More...

Young Parent Support (YPS)
This program is an open referral service that is designed to provide home based services to pregnant and parenting teens in the Greater New Bedford and Fall River area who are under the age of 24. The services are geared toward high-risk teens that are disengaged from needed services. Our team consists of experienced case managers to assist young parents with the many aspects of parenthood including health care, education, housing, and healthy relationships. Our services are free, voluntary, and confidential. YPS case managers speak English, Portuguese, and Spanish. The goal of the program is to prepare young parents to become self sufficient, healthy, well-informed individuals capable of making responsible decisions regarding pregnancy and parenting. To refer yourself, or to make a referral for someone you know, please fill out our Online Referral Form. A case manager will be in touch as soon as possible.