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.
Social Media
Child
& Family Services, Inc- Main Office ● 1061 Pleasant Street ● New
Bedford, MA 02740● Tel- (508) 996-8572 ● Fax (508) 991-8618