Parent to Parent Regional Offices are staffed by people who have walked the walk and are available to help other families:

• Support – Parent to Parent offers parents/caregivers the opportunity to connect one-to-one with a parent/caregiver of an individual with the same or similar disability or special health care need – someone who has “been there.”
• Information & Referral – Parent to Parent helps families locate the information and services they need.
• Training – Workshops are available on Understanding Medicaid Service Coordination, Record Keeping and Using a Health Care Notebook, and various other topics.

The organization’s parent-matching program is based on a model program used across the country. Parent to Parent assists a parent, who has a child with a developmental disability and/or special health care needs, by locating a volunteer support parent who has a similar experience. When a family initially receives a diagnosis, the emotional response can be overwhelming. Talking with another parent is an excellent resource with helping come to terms with emotional acceptance. You are not alone.

View Parent to Parent of NYS Regional Offices using our MSNavigator Mapping Tool.

YOUTH POWER! wants to make sure that youth from all over the state have the same access to opportunities to get involved! That’s why they have five Regional Teams scattered throughout the state, one in each of the five regions: Long Island, NYC, Hudson River, Central, and Western!

 View YouthPOWER! Regional Teams using our MS Navigator Mapping Tool.

The primary role of each Regional Parent Advisor is to build a relationship with all of the family support services within their region. Parent Advisors provide a forum for local family support services to network with one another. They serve as liaisons, facilitating communication between the New York State Office of Mental Health and the families in the community.

View FTNYS Parent Advisors using our MSNavigator Mapping Tool.

Single Point of Access (SPOA) is part of the NYS Office of Mental Health's (OMH) 2000-2001 initiatives designed to expand the county's existing community based mental health system and help make it a more cohesive and better coordinated system. The goal is to create a system that promotes recovery-oriented services, which are widely available, flexible, personally tailored and responsive to individual needs. Individual's preferences will be integrated into the process. All referrals and transitions between programs and services will be entered into a database, in order to monitor who receives services, who does not, alternative recommendations, and the actual mental health residential and case management needs. There will be periodic reassessment and monitoring of an individual's need for a particular level of care/service.

SPOA Coordinators connect people with serious mental illness to mental health services.

This resource directory is for the families of children and young adults who have a serious illness or long-lasting condition for which they need extra health care and support services. Children and young adults with special health care needs might have a serious or long-lasting:

• Physical condition
• Intellectual or developmental disability or
• Behavioral or emotional condition.