Family Service Of Rhode Island Inc

Programs: Children services - fsri's foster care program built on last year's efforts to outreach to the state's latino community. With the help of our spanish speaking recruiter, the foster care program more than doubled in size with an increase of 288% in placements. Foster parents receive a tax-free stipend, free medical/dental coverage for the child and clothing allowances, daycare assistance (for working parents), training/support groups and 24/7 support. Additionally, we have ramped up our efforts to support our foster parents, with the addition of new tools-both on-line communities and spanish-speaking support groups--and we have hired a full-time clinician to more fully address the needs of our clients and families. Our foster parent program is open to singles, partnered, and married individuals as well as being lgbtqqia-welcoming. Fsri completed its second year of partnership between new england school of technology occupational therapy (ot) program and the agency's residential programs for teenage girls. Fsri provided student placements within the residential homes to train staff and teach cognitive strategies as well as to foster an improved therapeutic environment, building upon our trauma-informed care approaches. The natural combination of trauma systems therapy and ot within our programs has proven to show large scale success in decrease in trauma symptoms and increase in client competence when managing trauma reactive symptoms. In addition, fsri has begun implementing more coordination between its foster care and residential programs, connecting potential foster families with opportunities to interact with our clients in our residential program, developing connections, and creating mentoring opportunities. Our family coaching and visitation program has also doubled in size and is working with families after reunification to keep kids at home. We have made a number of new staff hires and are providing various training opportunities to staff to broaden their expertise in tst and safecare.

community services - fsri's youth diversion program closed the year with 92% of youth served diverted from the juvenile justice system and our school based department has broadened their reach to service more than twenty schools. Clients who received treatment in fsri's community services demonstrated a significant reduction of symptoms as evidenced by the outcome measure pediatric symptom checklist (psc-17)fsri has partnered with peacelove to train staff to deliver 75-100 workshops consisting of visual arts, storytelling, sound, and movement to help rhode island's most vulnerable children, youth, adults, and families. Fsri and peacelove will build out an infrastructure to measure and report on client outcomes such as improved client perceptions of their own well-being, decreased reported impact of their symptoms, and improved overall participation and retention in care.

mount pleasant academy- mount pleasant academy (mpa) is a psychiatric day treatment facility for children from preschool to 8th grade. Children from cities and towns throughout rhode island and connecticut are referred to mpa for placement because the severity of their psychiatric and emotional difficulties interfere with their ability to progress in a public school setting. At mpa, children receive comprehensive psychiatric, psychological, behavioral, and academic services in order to:1. Reduce the need for inpatient psychiatric hospitalization2. Assess, diagnose, and treat significant mental health issues3. Provide families of the mpa students with wraparound support and services4. Educate the children in a therapeutic setting5. Reintegrate children, whenever possible, back into public school settings as the severity of their presenting difficulties decreases