Behavioral Health/Non-Profit Case Study

Led by Christina Gullo

The Situation

As the incoming president/CEO for a non-profit agency serving youth mostly in residential care, it became clear they were facing the challenge of a serious financial situation given changes in the demand and landscape of residential services. 

Specifically, the agency’s daily bed rate was low, and staff were unprepared for the level of mental health needs being seen in the young people entering residential treatment. 

The Strategy

As the leader of the organization, I worked with the board to complete an organizational assessment of people/leadership, finance/capital, systems, and technology. From the assessment, the development and operationalization of both short- and long-term plans to achieve financial stability were established.  

Through this organizational assessment, a landscape assessment and evaluation of strengths and weaknesses, it became clear that a transformational strategy was necessary.

The following were some of the major steps taken:

  • Meetings with all staff to communicate, share plans and answer questions, while working with a team of leaders to create a strategy map/scorecard. 

  • Negotiated increased daily bed rates and obtained a banking relationship to restructure our capital utilizing assets.   

  • Built executive, board and program leadership with the skill sets and experience to execute on the strategy.  

  • Conducted financial analysis and modeling of all existing programs to recommend closures, transfers, and new programming in alignment with landscape analysis and community needs. 

  • Selected Sanctuary trauma model and trained the entire organization to provide trauma-based treatment, and established a set of Guiding Principles for the organization. Worked to embed those principles into policies, practices, and daily work.   

  • Focused on human resources priorities of culture, compensation, hiring, training/development and diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. 

  • Moved the organization from paper records and documents to an electronic client record and cloud-based platform to assist in the completion of data analysis, program goals and outcome reporting.

The Impact

Specific outcomes included:

  • Transformed the organization from a residential provider for kids to a behavioral health organization serving youth, individuals, and families in the core areas of inpatient/outpatient, care coordination, education, and work-based learning.

  • Achieved Sanctuary® trauma-based certification, the only agency in Upstate NY, Council on Accreditation (National Certification) and an increased employee satisfaction. 

  • Reorganized operations to achieve efficiencies, reduce redundancies and implement new program directions.

  • Began insurance and Medicaid billing for services with revenue cycle management.

  • Led a strategy plan to address plans to reduce or eliminate services that were financially draining and not central to the core mission post-pandemic.

  • Remained opened and provided services through the COVID-19 pandemic.