New Residential Model Offers Hope After Years of Institutional Living

In a competitive process, Federation was awarded a contract from NYS OMH to operate a Transition to Community Residence (TCR) Program in Suffolk County, a new model with enhanced resources to support the successful transition to community living for 75 people, many with serious chronic medical conditions, who have been living in institutional settings for years, some since childhood. The program will assist people now living in a state-operated Residential Care Center for Adults (RCCA) in Kings Park and people who are being released from Pilgrim Psychiatric Center to transition to community living with the specialized supports the program will provide.

Staff will have medical and mental health expertise and include nurses, LPN’s, peers, rehabilitation associates and behavioral specialists to teach life skills and to stimulate residents to reimagine their future. As people move into the community within two years, the funding will be repurposed to support 75 supported housing beds and the staff will form two mobile residential support teams that will provide crisis intervention, rehabilitative and supportive services, linkage to community resources, networking and hospital diversion for former TCR residents and become a resource to all supported housing programs in Suffolk County. One 25-bed residence may remain, based on need.

People who have lived for years in institutional settings need hope and a vision for their future. Peers will be integral to this effort. Peers will work with residents to instill hope and share their own experience of the recovery process, assisting residents to actively explore educational, residential, vocational, social, and religious and community groups, recreational activities, and all the opportunities the community has to offer for a new life in recovery.

Since 1981 Federation has been serving people with serious mental illness and complex needs and employing people in recovery from mental illness to deliver those services. Federation operates over 380 units of housing, including the Irving Berkowitz Residence, a Community Residence/Single Room Occupancy (CR/SRO) in Suffolk County, designed to assist people with complex needs to transition into the community. In addition to residential services, other mental health services include case management, employment, clinic treatment, financial management, Personalized Recovery Oriented Services (PROS), Assertive Community Treatment (ACT), peer services, advocacy, outreach and education to individuals with serious mental illness living in Suffolk, Nassau, Queens and Brooklyn.