Service Locations:
Family of Kingston, 31 Albany Avenue
Family of New Paltz, 51 North Chestnut St., New Paltz
Family of Ellenville, 221 Canal St., Ellenville
Hudson Valley Mental Health clinics in Kingston, Ellenville and New Paltz
Program Hours: 9:00am to 5:00 pm, Monday through Friday. Program supervisory staff are available 24 hours a day through the county-wide hotline.
PRIMARY FUNCTIONS: Case management services for homeless individuals and families in transition; case management services for those struggling with mental health issues or at risk of becoming or are currently substance abusers; long term case management and housing assistance to support individuals and families who have recently been homeless, have a disability and are not yet capable of self sufficiency; assistance with case management, security deposits, rent arrears and/or short term rental assistance as part of a program to prevent homelessness or to re-house those who are already homeless; services to those re-entering the county from state prison, county jail or offenders who have minor children; sponsorship of the Moral Reconation Therapy program, a cognitive behavioral change curriculum; and, provision of Spanish case management at all three of the Hudson Valley Mental Health clinics, as well as Family’s offices.
ANCILLARY SERVICES: Crisis intervention and prevention; assistance with short and long-term housing; information and referral, and when necessary advocacy to assist individuals to access entitlements, mental health and drug/alcohol treatment, or vocational and employment assistance services; job preparedness and one on one life skills training; limited transportation assistance; individual counseling; community education and training on issues of homelessness; assistance with immigration issues; translations; and other legal services.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS:
At the end of the year, the County CoC received notice that it would no longer receive STEHP funding which was used to assist women victims of domestic violence with transitional housing. The program had capacity to house 7 families at a time. The agency will be seeking to restore this program from an alternative funding source.
During this year the program has provided care coordination in an effort to respond to the needs of individuals who are high users of Medicaid and have either serious chronic physical ailments or mental health or substance abuse disabilities. The program involves outreach to, sign up in, and ongoing care coordination in collaboration with the Health Home established by the Institute for Family Health. Leadership of the staff have been actively involved in the development of procedures and policies to manage this Health Home effort. In 2014, the program enrolled 93 individuals in the Health Home program.
The agency has also enrolled in the two major DSRIP efforts for the Hudson Valley, namely one established under the leadership of the Albany Medical Center and the second under the leadership of Westchester Medical Center and Montefiore Hospital. It is expected that we will provide care coordination and other services to more effectively respond to the needs of at-risk clients in a more planned and fiscally effective manner.
Another development was the merging of the Mental Health and the Spanish Case Management grants into a single one. ACMS continued to provide the same services as we had in the past. The change was more centered in the way the reporting is done and how service plans are developed. The Mental Health local government unit of Ulster County has been leading and overseeing this service. Eventually these services will be covered by Medicaid instead of the Office of Mental Health.
The program is intending to station a case manager in Woodstock and in New Paltz to better address the needs of the residents of those communities. They will work out of Family’s walk in centers and be able to provide localized service to respond to the lack of transportation available in the county.
The program strives to maintain Family of Woodstock’s philosophy amidst funding pressures. We believe that we are “people helping people help themselves”.