Clinical & Support Options Earns Top Honors for Best Practices, Quality Improvement

NORTHAMPTON — Community behavioral-health agency Clinical & Support Options is proving a local nonprofit can make a positive social impact while also employing the best in business practices at the same time.

Clinical & Support Options (CSO) has again achieved national accreditation through the New York-based Council on Accreditation (COA). CSO prepared for a year to earn the four-year reaccreditation, which was originally awarded to the agency in January 2016.

COA accreditation is a sought-after benchmark among human-service organizations. It demonstrates implementation of best-practice standards in all aspects of programming, service, management, and administration.

“It’s validating to have a highly regarded accreditor come to CSO, spend days and weeks scrutinizing all our policies, procedures, services, and locations, and then come to the final determination that CSO conducts business ethically and responsibly,” CSO President and CEO Karin Jeffers said. “Our job is to provide the very best service we can to our individual and family clients. Our commitment to best practices and quality improvement is reflected in this reaccreditation, and I’m very proud of our entire staff.”

Clinical & Support Options, originally founded in Greenfield in 1954, now has 16 locations throughout Western and Central Mass. and employs more than 750 local staff. CSO offers a full range of behavioral-health services, including crisis evaluation and stabilization, outpatient therapy, family and community supports, emergency shelter, substance-abuse services, and more. For the last eight years, CSO has developed a ‘trauma-informed care’ model that takes a holistic approach to understanding, recognizing, and responding to the effects of all types of trauma.

COA evaluated 811 different standards, covering all aspects of CSO’s programs, services, management, and administration.

 “COA accreditation is an arduous process, but well worth it,” Jeffers said. “It proves our organization is accountable, reliable, and consistent. CSO is well-coordinated, culturally competent, and employs evidence-based, trauma-informed processes.”