Family Services to Bring Children’s Behavioral Health Services to Northern Dutchess

 With support from Dutchess County, Family Services to open new, expanded northern Dutchess location in 2025

 Dutchess County Executive Sue Serino is pleased to announce the County is working with Family Services, Inc. to address the critical need for children’s behavioral health programs – with an expansion of children’s services in Poughkeepsie and the creation of new children’s programs in northern Dutchess County in 2025. With support from Dutchess County Department of Mental Health (DMH), Family Services is developing a new, larger outpatient mental health clinic in the northern Dutchess area, which will expand access for adults and be home to the new children’s behavioral health program.

Children’s behavioral health programming provides children up to age 17 with services that include comprehensive evaluation, crisis intervention, individual/group/family therapy, as well as psychiatric evaluation and ongoing medication management.  Earlier this year, Family Services received a $250,000 grant from New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) to expand children’s services at their Poughkeepsie location as well as other locations outside of Dutchess County. Following public forums and roundtables discussing mental health needs, County Executive Serino requested Family Services, Inc. offer these much-needed children’s mental health services in the northern Dutchess area.  To make a northern Dutchess program possible, Dutchess County will match the New York State OMH funding, investing $250,000 in start-up funding.

The new children’s behavioral health program will be part of the development of Family Services’ new, larger outpatient mental health clinic in Northern Dutchess.  Family Services has outgrown its existing location at Northern Dutchess Hospital in Rhinebeck and is currently working to finalize a larger, easy to access location. Dutchess County DMH will provide $205,000 in funding support for the new location, which, pending site finalization and construction, is expected to open in late 2025.

The County’s funding is part of a contract amendment that will redirect funding previously allocated to Family Services, identified in a recent audit by the Dutchess County Comptroller’s Office, and repurpose the funding to establish the needed children’s behavioral health services and new northern Dutchess location.

Part of Dutchess County DMH’s extensive network of community mental health service providers, Family Services, Inc. works to ensure anyone in need, regardless of insurance or income, has access to high-quality behavioral health to help people find their way towards recovery without stigma.  Highly trained, licensed therapists and counselors offer a variety of person-centered and evidence- based approaches.

The new northern Dutchess location and services comes following several meetings County Executive Serino and DMH Commissioner Jean-Marie Niebuhr have had over the past year with a coalition of northern Dutchess County stakeholders – including municipal leaders, educational administrators and community representatives – discussing the region’s specific need for behavioral health resources.   Other initiatives to support mental health in the northern Dutchess area include the upcoming establishment of a new “Rural Mental Health” subcommittee of the DMH Community Services Board to concentrate on the unique needs of these communities; as well as a $5,000 Youth Wellness Support Microgrant award to the Red Hook Library for Youth Mental Health First Aid training which will be available to all librarians in Dutchess County to create a mental health action plan to support each library’s visitors