Albany, NY, November 18, 2013 – Family & Children Services of the Capital Region, Inc. (FCSCR) today announced that the 200-year old Non-profit will begin doing business as Capital Counseling. The DBA Capital Counseling reflects the organization’s current Mission – to provide compassionate individual counseling, supportive group counseling, and mental health education, to residents of the Capital Region who are struggling with mental and behavioral health issues.
Kandie Sawyer, Chief Operations Officer for Capital Counseling said, “2013 has been an exciting time of growth and change at the organization – the most exciting being that we clarified our mission and goals, and applied resources toward expanding what we do well, mental health counseling, to more people and partners across the Capital Region.”
The Albany, NY-based not-for-profit first was first established in 1813 as the Albany Religious Tract Society. It operated for its first 80 years under various names as a publisher of religious literary works in support of its missionary and evangelical efforts, and in its efforts to provide social assistance to the impoverished and needy of the early 1800’s.
Through the 1900’s the organization provided varied public services to including child adoption services beginning in 1930’s. The organization expanded its counseling services with the launch of the Capital Employee Assistance Program in 1973. Today, Capital EAP is the largest regional EAP provider in Upstate New York. In 1996, the organization was awarded a contract from New York State to fund the Center for Problem Gambling, now the region’s largest and most successful gambling treatment center.
“It is unfortunate that there is such a large and growing number of people in the Albany area that are in need of mental and behavioral health counseling,” said Sawyer. “We have an aggressive plan for 2014 that includes partnerships with many area health care providers and are actively seeking talented therapists across all disciplines that share in our mission to help these individuals and families”
Arguably the most unique aspect to the agency’s services will be the availability of pro-bono counseling for those individuals in the community that live close to or below the poverty line, and haven’t the means to pay.
“Income levels and poverty have a direct impact on mental health, said Jayme McRee, Senior Director for the agency. “People living below the poverty line are three times more likely to have serious psychological problems. And even with changes in the new health care laws, having a lack of money is the leading reason given for why adults in America do not receive proper mental health care. The Community Mental Health Outreach program was specifically designed to address this need.”
As part of the organization’s new image, brand and mission, a series of advertising and marketing initiatives including web, print and broadcast, will launch in December, 2014 to notify the public of the agency, its services and the Community Mental Health Outreach program.