Community Hope and Comprehensive Behavioral Healthcare (CBH Care) have begun taking over operations at eight of the State-run cottages at Greystone this week. The Partnership Program will focus on helping thirty-six (35) long-term patients at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital to re-learn the skills to live in the community and overcome their reliance on the institutional system. The Partnership Program is based on the CHAMP pilot program which the two agencies launched in 2000 to help individuals ready for discharge but resistant to leaving the institutional setting after years of hospitalization. “Imagine being in awe of how much society has changed because you have lived the past fifteen, twenty-five, perhaps even thirty-six years in an institution,” said Peter Scerbo, CBH Care Executive Director. “That is how long individuals entering The Partnership Program have resided at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital.”

Launching The Partnership at Greystone Community Hope (CH) and Comprehensive Behavioral Healthcare (CBH Care) tour the newly-renovated cottages they have taken over at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital. Pictured from left is J. Michael Armstrong, CH Executive Director; James Cooney, CBH Care Assistant Executive Director; Sue Devlin; CBH Care Director of Residential Services; Tiffany Oakes, CBH Care Program Coordinator; Peter Scerbo, CBH Care Executive Director; and Carmine Deo, CH Director of Clinical Services.

The first cottages have been renovated and the first patients from Greystone have moved into the Partnership Program. Upon completion of renovations at the remaining cottages, Community Hope and CBH Care will provide housing for seventy-six (76) individuals at the CHAMP and Partnership Programs at Greystone. The programs also includes two partial care programs where behavioral health care services are provided and a drop-in center for social and leisure activities.

Both the CHAMP and the Partnership programs have been made possible by funding from the New Jersey Division of Mental Health Services.

In 2005, the Governor’s Task Force on Mental Health cited the CHAMP pilot as an effective approach to helping more individuals transition from long-time hospitalization. The CHAMP program has been expanded to serve 25 individuals leaving Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital. The program is located on the former grounds of the hospital in a private cul-de-sac of homes now owned by the County of Morris.

“Our goal is to help individuals transition from an environment where everything from cooking and laundry has been done for them to a situation where they are living independently and doing for themselves. Basically, we want to work ourselves out of a job,” said J. Michael Armstrong, Community Hope Executive Director.

Combined, Community Hope and CBH Care have developed residential programs for nearly 400 individuals with mental illness and deliver residential and behavioral healthcare services to 650 mental health consumers daily.

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