History

In keeping with our tradition of helping people, South Shore Mental Health has grown from a small child guidance center serving Quincy and a few contiguous towns in 1926, to a comprehensive community-based behavioral health care organization serving Southeastern Massachusetts, including Cape Cod. Our mission is, and always has been, to provide creative and effective services that respond to changing needs and changing times. Just as we were here for the community in 1926, we will evolve to meet the needs of our communities tomorrow.

SSMH is a licensed, private, not-for-profit organization. We provide an array of services in the areas of mental health, mental retardation, addictions, and child development for children, adults, and seniors. Our corporate headquarters are located in Quincy, with additional office locations in Plymouth, Hyannis and Brewster.

Community-based services in the early and mid 20th century was, by definition, for children and their families, as adults with mental illness resided in institutions. One of the first specialty programs offered by SSMH, the clinical nursery, has evolved into today's Step One Early Intervention Program. Step One provides a range of educational and therapeutic services to over 200 children with special developmental needs and their families.

During the early 1960s, the movement of patients out of psychiatric hospitals and into the community provided unprecedented opportunities for us to develop new services to help people with mental illness live full and productive lives in the community. We created a day treatment program, Discovery Day Treatment, and opened our first residential program for adults with mental illness on Revere Road in Quincy.

SSMH was incorporated as a community mental health center in 1979. During this period of extraordinary growth, we created a network of residential programs with varying levels of intensity; developed a community support treatment and case management program; and established a 24-hour emergency services team staffed with clinicians trained to stabilize individuals in crisis.

In the 1980s we saw a need for additional outpatient counseling services, and opened our private-practice model Bayview Associates program in Quincy. Recognizing its huge success, we expanded this practice into the Plymouth area as well. Through Bayview, we were able to work with the private marketplace such as business and industry offering employee assistance services, health and wellness programs, and management consultation and training. Also through Bayview, we became expert in mastering the challenges of the new managed care environment spreading over the mental health and substance abuse field. Our reputation for excellence resulted in numerous contracts with private insurance companies and the newly emerging managed care companies.

In 1995, Lower Cape Human Services merged with SSMH to continue a tradition of providing outpatient mental health and substance abuse services on Cape Cod. Because of a shared sense of mission, and common philosophy, the partnership has been successful in maintaining continuity of quality care for residents of Cape Cod. Services have expanded to include main offices on the Mid as well as Lower Cape, and the addition of outreach services throughout the entire Cape Cod area. Our Cape services are now known as Bayview Associates as well.

During the past decade SSMH has experienced extraordinary growth in the numbers of individuals and families we serve, the geography of the area we cover, and the number of professional staff who care for these people. We continue to develop innovative programs that respond to changing needs and shifting funding opportunities. We are able to demonstrate a long history of providing high quality, cost-effective, community-based care that results in an improved quality of life for our clients.