MultiSystemic Therapy-FIT
A treatment model designed to support young people and their families as Pleasantville Cottage School residents prepare to return home. In collaboration with residents, committed staff helps to plan overarching goals and create a step-by-step roadmap for families to move forward toward a healthier, more stable future.
JCCA Youth ACT Program: Confronting the Youth Mental Health Crisis:
In 2022, New York’s Office of Mental Health approached JCCA about forming the first Youth ACT team in NYC to serve young people ages 10-21. Abby Jeffrey, a JCCA Assistant Vice President emphasized that JCCA “jumped on the opportunity because it fit perfectly into our vision of providing continuum of care. Youth ACT fills a crucial gap between lighter-touch outpatient services and full-scale residential or institutional care. It is a great resource for kids we are already working with, as well as to address a really pressing need in the city.”
This highly-coordinated, multidimensional approach is pivotal for the hard to reach. The team meet with youth at least twice a week providing a spectrum of tailored services: individual and family therapy, medication management, advocacy in the school, in the home, sometimes in court. “We’ll basically do anything and everything that might make a difference,” Bermudez notes. “We’ll write letters to HRA for clients. We just got a client a furniture grant. We got a support animal approved. I wrote
a letter to HUD because a client who was fighting with sibling needed an extra bedroom. We’ve attended suspension hearings and IEP meetings at the school.”
“Being on an ACT team is like running a relay race,” Ricardo Bermudez, Director of the Youth ACT program, says. “The baton is handed off to
other members of the team to cover all dimensions of support. And the conversation between team members is more or less constant.”
“We’re here for these kids–and we’re not going to give up.”