Thursday, April 9, 2009

The Great Recession and Access to Services: What Will Our Capacity Be?

Robbin Miller, a frequent cross-poster on this site, reports that several agencies in Massachusetts have recently closed their doors:   I am interested in knowing more.  Which agencies, how many people?  .  I am not surprised to hear these reports; the economic situation nationwide is dire, and many mental health agencies operate on a very narrow margin.  Details?  This is what I have so far:
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Child abuse office to close
By David Pepose, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Updated: 04/01/2009 08:33:16 AM EDT
Wednesday, April 01
PITTSFIELD — The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is closing three of its statewide facilities — including its lone Berkshire County office in Pittsfield — by July.
According to MSPCC spokeswoman Mary McGeown, the recession is forcing the nonprofit organization to phase out its offices in Pittsfield, Greenfield and Brockton. The Pittsfield office, which primarily treats children with mental health and behavioral issues, has a caseload of 450.

Child abuse nonprofit to close 3 sites
By Marc Larocque
Globe Correspondent / April 1, 2009
The Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is planning to close its offices in Pittsfield, Brockton, and Greenfield.
The organization informed its staffs from those locations last week.
"These sites provide only outpatient services," said Mary McGeown, communications manager for the MSPCC. "We made the decision that we really need to close those facilities and focus our efforts and energies on other locations. We made a decision to close those sites that offer one single service type: mental health services" for outpatients.

I have heard that there was a hearing at the State House yesterday about this;  several people from the Children's Mental Health Campaign spoke, although they didn't seem to directly address this issue, at least in the blog entry on "A Healthy Blog"

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