Paving the Way for our Future

Several weeks ago, I blogged about Sunny Hills’ approach to nonprofit M&A and, specifically, how it plays a critical role in our organization’s strategic planning.

For any nonprofit organization considering an affiliation, or perhaps a merger, I highly recommend David LaPiana’s body of work as a valuable tool to organize and guide the planning process. LaPiana’s The Nonprofit Mergers Workbook, Part I and Part II served as a critical guideposts for our own board and executive staff as we explored potential alliances with partner agencies, most recently with East Bay provider, Bay Area Youth Centers (BAYC).

This week, I am pleased to welcome Josh Leonard, Executive Director of BAYC, as our guest blogger. A 17-year veteran of BAYC and its Executive Director for the last seven years, Josh brings a valuable perspective to the merger process our two agencies employed. We hope you’ll benefit from learning about our approach as we take a closer look at the process that led to Sunny Hills’ affiliation, and later merger, with BAYC.

***

It all started with a conversation. I was approached by Barry Feinberg (Chief Program Officer at Sunny Hills) in 2007. We discussed the commonalities between our agencies, our mutual struggles, and our goals -- and how we might partner to get there. After a number of conversations with Barry, and later Joe, I began to see how a merger could work in our favor—not just for BAYC, but for Sunny Hills, too.

As an executive director, one of my primary responsibilities is to be future focused. For me, the philosophical question of ‘who do we want to be’ and the more practical aspect of ‘how are we going to get there’ are always top of mind. BAYC was founded in 1974 as a group home provider for youth in foster care; several years ago, I saw the system of care changing rapidly and knew that we needed to change with it or risk obsolescence. I believed that we had unique set of competencies that added value to Alameda County’s system of care. The challenge, then, was to package and parlay these competencies in a way that was relevant and sustainable given the larger forces at play.

After a number of conversations, I gleaned that Sunny Hills was facing a similar set of issues. Known for its residential treatment program for emotionally disturbed children, Sunny Hills was transitioning out of residential care—which had been critically under-funded for a number of years—in order to provide a broader array of community-based services for children, youth and families. Once we saw the potential value of an affiliation, the question turned to what this would this look like?

At that point, each agency identified representatives to serve on a merger study taskforce. I participated along with two BAYC board members, Joe Costa and Barry Feinberg of Sunny Hills, and three Sunny Hills board members. Our taskforce was facilitated by Mary Denton, an experienced management professional who now serves in the role of Chief Financial & Administrative Officer for Sunny Hills. Our group met monthly—sometimes more frequently—for a period of about eight months. Each meeting focused on a singular topic, for example mission/vision, human resources, or programmatic goals. The process was intensive, but it allowed us to get to know one another and establish a foundation of trust. By the end, we had solidified our initial inclination: by coming together, we could create social value and impact on a broader scale.

It wasn’t always as easy as I make it sound. For me, the hardest part was the notion we would be letting go of our 30-year history. Sunny Hills was a larger agency and had been around for decades longer than BAYC. What would a merger really look like? The hierarchy of command? Our creativity, responsiveness and nimbleness that had defined our agency, would it be lost? It was the fear of the unknown.

Our taskforce held the value of open and honest communication. It was important that I clearly communicated my concerns and highlighted any ‘deal-breakers.’ Once I realized that our agency wasn’t going away, I began to focus more so on the pros of this affiliation as the cons dwindled away. With the strength of Sunny Hills’ administrative infrastructure, we would have the capacity to deliver our services on a broader scale than ever before. BAYC held a strong brand in the East Bay, a region that Sunny Hills had yet to tap. Sunny Hills had a solid foothold in Marin County and was beginning to expand its reach to Sonoma County. Together, we had a regional footprint and an infrastructure that would afford us the ability to deliver the scale and quality of programming we desired. And BAYC could focus on what we do best: ensuring transitional age youth have the opportunity they deserve to reach their full potential.

At the conclusion of our taskforce, a recommendation was made to our respective boards to affiliate; BAYC completed its merger with Sunny Hills in October 2008. Roughly one year later, we have managed to integrate our systems—accounting, payroll, case management etc.—and have begun an exercise to strengthen our brand. Our programs are expanding, and we are beginning to disseminate our knowledge and expertise on a broader scale.

We are moving ahead as an agency, and I have greater aspirations for our future. Without a doubt, this has been a real win for BAYC…for our youth, our partners, and our donors, too.

***

You can reach Josh by calling (510) 727-9401 ext. 104 or email him at josh@bayareayouthcenters.org.

Back to School: the politics of educating children with special needs

This is the time of year when many families are sending their children back to school. I think most parents would agree that finding the right academic environment for their child is essential—one that supports their development and encourages their continued growth, both academically and personally.

But when your child has special needs, finding the right placement can be challenging. For many parents, this is a long, arduous process fraught with any number of hurdles that require an abundance of time, resources, and patience. If the family unit itself is stressed—perhaps due to poverty or mental illness—these challenges are multiplied exponentially.

In the United States, every child is entitled by law to a “free and appropriate public education.” When a child has needs that cannot be met within a public school setting, the child may be placed in a nonpublic school that is better equipped to serve them. A nonpublic school is a privately operated, publicly funded school that specializes in providing educational services for students with needs so exceptional that they cannot be met in a public school setting. (Learn more by reading the CACFS Nonpublic School Fact Sheet)

Sunny Hills Services’ Marin Academic Center, better known as MAC, is one of 369 certified nonpublic schools in the state of California and one of five in Marin County. MAC students present with a wide range of emotional and behavioral challenges –– including difficulties with social interaction, aggression toward others and self-injurious behavior. Our students’ emotional and behavioral difficulties stem from a variety of conditions in their home lives including family dysfunction, parent or sibling illness, and parental mental health and/or substance-abuse issues.

Among MAC’s student body:

• 60% of students have suffered some form of abuse or neglect.
• 40% of students are known or suspected victims of sexual abuse.
• 33% of students report having thought about committing suicide.
• 65% of students live below or close to the federal poverty level.

For these children, the Marin Academic Center is an oasis of support. MAC provides a quality, individualized education that addresses individual student’s needs, and builds upon their interests and fundamental desire to learn and grow. The ultimate goal for MAC students is successful reintegration into a less restrictive learning environment in which they are able to function more independently and continue to advance academically.

Certified nonpublic schools like MAC are regulated by the State Department of Education (DOE) and operate under a master contract with the educational agency that is responsible for student placements, in our case the Marin County Special Education Local Planning Area (SELPA) and a few other SELPAs located in the greater Bay Area region. These contracts detail every aspect of the agreement between the public agency and the nonpublic school including the negotiated daily rate, the method by which the nonpublic school is reimbursed for the services delivered.

Reimbursement rates vary according to the extent of services provided by the school, the individual needs of students served, and even the region of the state in which the nonpublic school is located. Rates are generally set, though can be increased annually in one of two ways: through a cost of living adjustment (COLA) and/or by the nonpublic school’s petition for an increase. In the case of the latter, the nonpublic school must appeal in writing to the educational agency responsible for overseeing the master contract.

As cutbacks to public spending for education have reached virtually every corner of this nation, staying afloat financially has become increasingly challenging for many schools and school districts. This is certainly the case for our nonpublic school.

The inevitable rise in the cost of doing business, such as increases to the cost of employee benefits and teacher salaries, has resulted in MAC’s reimbursement rate not being nearly adequate to fund our special education program at the level required—a situation that has been exacerbated by the fact that MAC has received only nominal increases to its reimbursement rate over the past five years, and no increase this year.

In response, Sunny Hills has committed to raise private philanthropic support to ensure MAC is able to continue to deliver the high quality services our students need and so deserve. The Marin Academic Center has received generous support from numerous members of our donor community since its inception more than thirty years ago. These gifts represent not only significant financial support, but a belief in and commitment to children at risk.

In a particular way, I would like to recognize several of our recent donors who have made it possible for us to weather these challenging economic times and continue to serve children who need our help: the J. Patrick and Irene Hunt Educational Fund at Sunny Hills, the In-N-Out Burger Foundation, the George H. Sandy Foundation, the Irene S. Scully Family Foundation, the James R. Sylla Education Fund at Sunny Hills, the Wells Fargo Community Support Campaign, and our generous volunteers, the Guilds and Auxiliary of Sunny Hills Services.

It is a privilege to be able to make a positive difference in another person’s life. On behalf of the children and families we serve, I would like to acknowledge these individuals by expressing our appreciation for your steadfast support of our mission. But, most importantly, I want you to know that your contributions have facilitated so many positive changes in the lives of vulnerable children. For that, you have my deepest gratitude.

P.S. The Marin Academic Center ushers in the 2009-2010 academic year on Monday, August 24th at its new, permanent home on Sunny Hills’ San Anselmo campus. If you are interested in touring our school, or simply need additional information, please contact Principal Jolene Yee at jyee@sunnyhillsservices.org.

Positive Interventions for Youth Offenders with Mental Illness

Recent articles in the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times address the strain on juvenile correction systems as they are increasingly relied upon to handle a growing population of youth offenders with mental health issues. The situation is becoming even more perilous as cash-starved states are slashing funding for mental health programs in communities and schools.

It is not atypical for youth who struggle with mental health disorders to have unmet needs across all of their life domains. Often, youth land in juvenile hall because it was the only way they could get connected to the mental health services they need. Whether the discussion is about juvenile corrections or special education, for the most part, we are talking about the same youth. They just happen to access the system through different entry points, and all too frequently this happens to be through juvenile corrections. The particular issue faced by California’s juvenile system, and other systems across the country, has raised the public’s awareness of the need for better integration within the youth system of care—from special education and mental health services to foster care services, juvenile corrections and probation.

No doubt problems exist, and public discourse is one way to enact change. Sunny Hills has been working on the ground implementing innovative new solutions that are making a measurable difference in the lives of these young people. The agency has been tapped by the Sonoma County departments of Probation and Mental Health to participate in a unique partnership designed specifically to address the mental health needs of juvenile offenders and their families. While other states may be slashing community-based mental health programs, Sonoma County has been quite progressive in its approach to treating juvenile offenders with mental health issues. Research shows that youth with mental disorders are placed at higher risk for re-offending. The County made an intentional decision to concentrate its efforts on addressing these youths’ mental health needs as a way of also addressing their delinquent behavior.

Up to now, it was not a widely held belief that mental health services could be delivered effectively outside of the jail; the prevailing belief was that containment would be necessary in order to diagnose and treat offenders. In reality, as the juvenile corrections system was flexed beyond its capacity, youth were being misdiagnosed and under-served in most all aspects of their functioning, often worsening their mental illness. This is precisely why programs like our Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) and Project PRIDE are needed; our experience demonstrates that juvenile offenders with mental health issues can be treated successfully in the community, improving their mental health functioning and lessening their chances for recidivism.

The ACT program, designed to address the needs of mentally ill juvenile offenders, and its newer companion, Project PRIDE which targets Santa Rosa-based youth offenders with known or suspected gang affiliations, are both community-based mental health programs that treat youth in context of their homes, schools and communities. The ultimate goal is to lessen time in juvenile hall, support the youth to regain a sense of emotional well-being, and also develop the assets and competencies (improving social skills, employability, education, and civic and other life skills) to help them become productive members of society.

And it works: in the six month period from January through June 2008, 75% of graduates (12 of 15) from the ACT program transitioned to less restrictive settings requiring a lower level of care. After entering the ACT program, the number of new petitions—e.g. incidents occurring whereby youth break the terms of their probation (curfew, drug usage, school attendance, associating with forbidden adults or teens, AWOL) to more serious misdemeanors (drug possession, property destruction) to felony charges—for delinquent youth improved by 90%.

The successes achieved during the pilot year of the ACT program spawned the development of new services designed to treat specialized populations of youth. This year, the ACT program will deliver services to youth with mental illness who are returning from residential and juvenile institutions, for example correctional camps or out-of-state locked facilities. The ultimate objective is to reduce the young person’s time in an out-of-home placement and provide the tools and support to soften their landing back into their community.

At Sunny Hills, we believe that programs like ACT have the potential to make systemic changes to the way we view and treat juvenile offenders with mental illness. These youth aren’t bad seeds; they are young people who are struggling with a severe illness and simply need the right resources delivered in an appropriate setting to have a meaningful chance at turning their lives around. We believe they can. Our youth are living proof.

Introducing our new Director of Mental Heath Training & Education

Sunny Hills Services has appointed agency veteran Brad Freed to assume the new position of Director of Mental Health Training & Education. Brad brings a tremendous depth of knowledge and experience to his new position having served in the field of child and adolescent treatment services for more than 20 years.

As Sunny Hills has transitioned from being principally a provider of residential services to severely emotionally disturbed children and adolescents to one that offers a full array of community-based mental health services, the need to develop a common clinical training platform for staff has been brought to the fore. Under Brad’s leadership, Sunny Hills will develop the means by which to evaluate our work, encourage a level of rigor in our practice, and deepen our culture around ongoing learning and development.

A key facet of Brad’s work in the coming year will be to lead the implementation of evidence-based practices across all of sites, to ensure our clinical practices are not only current, but also effective and consistently applied across the multiple settings where our services are delivered. Brad will also develop and maintain organizational training standards, assuring the provision of training to meet professional, regulatory, accreditation and contractual requirements.

The investment in our clinical infrastructure and practice is an outgrowth of the transition we have made programmatically over the last several years. In this era of state cutbacks to a wide range of social services, Sunny Hills’ fiscal budget has emerged relatively unscathed by these draconian cuts. Approximately 50% of the agency’s revenues are derived from county EPDST (mental health) contracts, a more sustainable source of revenue for the agency. This only reinforces our decision made several years ago to exit residential care and position the agency so that we could deliver community-based mental health services on a much broader scale than before.

Please join me in congratulating Brad on his new position!