Caspar Inc

Causes: Mental Health, Substance Abuse Treatment

Mission: Caspar's mission is to provide community-based services to those affected by substance use disorders. Caspar offers a comprehensive array of outreach, shelter, stabilization, residential aftercare, and prevention services to meet the needs of the populations.

Programs: Residential services - this program provides both men's and women's residential treatment programs. These gender specific programs focus on the distinct recovery issues of men and women. The women's residential program focuses on the distinct recovery issues and needs of women, such as a history of trauma and abuse, eating disorders and the loss of children due to active substance abuse. The men's residential program provides a residential experience for men where they become secure in their recovery and receive case management to build relapse prevention skills.

emergency service center - caspar operates one of three homelessshelters in massachusetts that are funded to provide daytime andovernight services to men and women with a history of active substanceuse. In addition to crisis stabilization and on site medical and mentalhealth care, the emergency service center provides counseling, casemanagement, referral, and early recovery support for newly sober menand women. With an overnight capacity of 107, the emergency servicecenter is the largest shelter in the greater boston area and the onlyshelter which accepts clients who are actively using alcohol and otherdrugs.

firststep street outreach team offers life saving alternatives tounsheltered homeless men and women who are affected by substance abuse,mental illness, and medical complications associated with life on thestreets. Firststep staff engage homeless people where they are andbuild trusting relationships. Through a combination of foot teams andmobile teams in vans, staff travel to known homeless hangouts -business districts, subway stations, parks, meal programs, drop-in centers, and building doorways - seeking homeless men and women who may need help. The staff offer unsheltered individuals access to emergency medical and psychiatric care, meal programs, shelters, substance abuse treatment, and daytime drop-in and social service centers.