Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center cut the ribbon Wednesday on the new home of its Child & Family Guidance Program at 150 Dixwell Ave., moving the children’s behavioral health services hub into a larger space inside ConnCORP’s newly built First HAVEN building.
The program — which relocated from the health center’s longtime offices at 226 Dixwell Ave. — offers therapy, psychiatric care, and crisis services to children and teens. Health center leaders said the bigger space will let them serve more families.
“There are so many people who suffer in silence and don’t need to,” Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center CEO Michael R. Taylor told a crowd of staff, officials, and community members at the ceremony. “Our purpose in expanding this footprint is to create an opportunity for those people, for us to help them smooth the way.”
Asked why the program moved, Taylor was blunt: “Simple. More space.”
He said the new location is about 150 percent of the size of the old one, allowing the program to expand its capacity and serve more families. The health center runs a second Child & Family Guidance site at 400 Columbus Ave.; together, Taylor said, the two serve thousands of children and families.
The program serves children from ages 2 through 18, offering individual, family, and group therapy, medication management, crisis intervention, and case management, according to Sandra Gibson, the health center’s director of child behavioral health. When patients turn 18, they’re transitioned to the health center’s adult services.
Gibson said the program doesn’t keep a waitlist. The trends she sees most among young patients, she said, include trauma, autism spectrum disorders, community violence, and substance use, particularly cannabis.
One of the biggest gaps, Gibson said, comes after a young person leaves an inpatient psychiatric stay. With no intermediate level of care, many go straight back to outpatient treatment.
“These kids need support,” she said. “They can’t last like a half hour here, and that’s it. They need to be seen every other day.”
The new space allowed the program to add a child psychiatrist, bringing the total to three, according to Dr. Ece Tek, the health center’s chief of behavioral health. Tek said the health center’s child behavioral health services now include more than 50 child therapists, including clinicians at its 27 school-based health clinics.
Families can walk in, call the health center directly, or be referred by schools or pediatricians. Gibson said pediatricians at the health center screen young patients for depression during checkups and can walk them straight over for behavioral health care.
“We want them to know that we’re available, we’re here, we are here to support them with their child’s mental health issues,” Gibson said. “We can’t fix everything, but we’ll do our best to support. They know their child better than us.”
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who spoke at Wednesday’s ceremony, said the program saw 18,000 patient visits last year from residents of 81 Connecticut communities. She took aim at colleagues in Congress who she said want to cut behavioral health funding.
“I serve with some folks who want to cut out behavioral health services. They don’t believe it has merit or function, and we know that they are wrong,” DeLauro said. “We will continue to prove them wrong over and over again.”
The mental health crisis among young people, she said, “used to be under the radar, now is in full reality. These youngsters are our future.”
The move is the latest piece of the long-in-the-works redevelopment of the former Dixwell Plaza, led by ConnCAT and its sister organization, ConnCORP. The First HAVEN building, which also houses ConnCAT’s headquarters, opened with a ribbon cutting on Juneteenth.
The health center sold its 226 Dixwell Ave. building to ConnCORP six years ago as part of the land assembly for the project. In 2023, the health center moved its other Dixwell operations across the street into the rebuilt Dixwell Community “Q” House.
Taylor credited now-former ConnCAT CEO Erik Clemons and ConnCORP Chief Operating Officer Paul McCraven with bringing the health center into the new building.
Founded in 1968 as a collaboration between the Hill Parents Association and Yale School of Medicine, Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center was Connecticut’s first community health center. Taylor said it now serves about 60,000 patients a year at roughly 38 sites.
“Not growth for the sake of growth,” he said, “but growth to meet community needs.”
Cornell Scott-Hill CEO Michael R. Taylor gives his remarks during the Innaguration: “There are so many people who suffer in silence and don’t need to.” Brandon Cortes Photos.