(This is the second of a two-part report as Newtown's Recovery and Resiliency Team transitions services to a newly established municipal Center for Support and Wellness.)

The hundreds of Newtown residents receiving post-12/14 support services and referrals through the now-defunct Recovery and Resiliency Team (RRT) are beginning to make the acquaintance of Jennifer Crane and Corinne Ofgang, director and care navigator, respectively, for a new town department that was created when grant funding for the RRT lapsed on March 31.

Newtown's new Center for Support and Wellness (CSW) will be orienting itself in the coming weeks, while preparing to add two more care navigators to its ranks as a result of another three-year grant recently received by the town.

One of the first goals the CSW staffers have is to be sure the many existing clients transitioning from the RRT understand that underwriting for individual and family counseling and other services to ease posttraumatic stress and other aftereffects of the Sandy Hook tragedy is still available. The bulk of that funding is being made through continuing cooperation with the Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation.

A new process was put in place several weeks before the RRT ceased operations. Anyone formerly sending invoices and other documentation related to counseling or other referrals to the RRT should now send that documentation the Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation at 19 Church Hill Road, Newtown CT 06470; fax them to 203-403-9491, or scan and e-mail the information to fund support specialist Lucie Connell at

lconnell@nshcf.org. E-mail is the preferred method.

Ms Connell is also available to answer questions by phone at 203-461-2233.

The Collaborative Recovery Fund, from which funding is available, is administered by the Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation. It continues to provide financial assistance for mental health treatment to victims, SHS students and their families, SHS employees, and emergency responders who suffered trauma after the events of 12/14.

The main contributor of funds is the Newtown-Sandy Hook Community Foundation (via the Sandy Hook School Support Fund) with additional contributions from the Newtown Lions, Rotary, and memorial funds.

Launching CSW

First Selectman Pat Llodra, who oversaw the transition and addition of the CSW under the town's Social Services agency umbrella, offered high praise for the departing RRT staff, project manager Margot Robins; case managers Catherine Gaida LCSW, Suzy DeYoung, MsEd, and Eileen Rondeau, RN; community outreach liaison Melissa Glaser, LPC; and clinical recovery leader Deb Del Vecchio-Scully, LPC.

"We're so thankful and appreciative of their work," Mrs Llodra said. "Remember, they came to us with no model to guide them. But as individual experts in their field, they created everything."

Part of the reason Mrs Llodra and her other advisors decided to shift staffing from clinicians to care navigators is because she believes, in hindsight, the town did not do enough to address the highly distinct individual needs of those asking for help.

"We didn't personalize the services enough, and we will do better to that end," the first selectman said. "Each person receiving services through the new center must have a care navigator. When we were putting the RRT in place, we didn't know how [to address] a traumatized individual - we didn't know the science of trauma."

But in the ensuing months and years, Mrs Llodra said she acquired more knowledge.

In recent months, the first selectman has been consulting with the US Department of Justice (DOJ) about the need to create and provide sustainable support to community members. She worked with others to accomplish that while the DOJ assessed the RRT. That report was recently delivered and used to modify job descriptions as interviews continued with candidates for the CSW positions.

Health District Director Donna Culbert served on a committee that was responsible for interviewing both the RRT and CSW staffers, as well as serving on the RRT Board. The health director will be part of an advisory group for the new staff.

Ms Culbert told

The Bee that leading up to and through the agency transition, she has "personally seen the quality, steadfast commitment of those professionals," and is "confident in the future delivery of services."

"It's reassuring that we are moving to the implementation of the Center for Support and Wellness," Ms Culbert said. "We have been considering the addition of mental health services to our social services delivery for quite some time."

For more than 18 months, Ms Culbert noted, the RRT provided invaluable service to residents.

"And while doing so, they had to learn as they went, improving and refining their work as they responded to those who called and came," she said, "because there was no model for this work."

The health director said the addition of the Ms Crane as director of the CSW, and Ms Ofgang as the first of three eventual care navigators on staff, will ensure continuity of meeting ongoing needs.

DOJ Analyses

According to an extensive survey funded by the DOJ and conducted under the leadership of Kimberly Hoagwood, PhD, of the New York University Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, researchers found that as of about a year ago, "Newtown offers an extensive and comprehensive range of services … that is as extensive as is found in larger cities."

Mrs Llodra said she learned from the DOJ report, which supported building the CSW around a single point of services working from the most impacted families out.

"We're morphing into this whole new community wellness model," Mrs Llodra said. "If the DOJ funding had continued, we would have moved the RRT into that suggested structure. Now we have good advice on how to make that agency even more effective and responsive."

The report took the closing of the RRT and the planned changes and reductions in staffing for support into consideration, she said.

The report notes one of the most serious gaps is occurring because of underutilized training for care providers. And that a substantial portion of the families most affected by the tragedy reported that services were not well-matched to their specific needs because care navigation was not consistently available.

The most helpful services for victim families and witnesses most immediately affected, according to the report, addressed specific needs and included a point person navigating them through those services.

The report also recommends linking future funding to evidence of treatment and service effectiveness, as well as establishing, maintaining, and using data monitoring systems to track progress toward communitywide goals.

Mrs Llodra said as the RRT began its work and integrating with community members, they identified certain constituencies such as educators and Sandy Hook School staffers, responders, and others. But at the beginning of their work, Ms Llodra believes there was "a lack of identifying the need for individualized support."

While identifying the extraordinary work of the RRT members, Mrs Llodra also recognized that their work was hard, painful, and emotional.

"Thanks to the RRT, now we have a better lens to view how to move forward, making sure we personalize and individualize services as we build this new system," she concluded. "We know how to do that work better."

CSW is located at the entrance to Fairfield Hills, at 28 Trades Lane, just in from Wasserman Way. For more information call 203-270-4612 or visit the agency's website newtowncsw.org.

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