History

Peace of mind in behavior health care for more than three decades.

The Providence Center has been an integral part of Rhode Island's exemplary behavior health care system since its establishment in 1969. At that time, founder Charles E. Maynard operated from a makeshift office in a room at the Biltmore Hotel. Mr. Maynard was hired to enact grant money from the City of Providence to establish a non-profit mental health clinic. The clinic would serve people with minimal financial resources who had mental and emotional problems.

In 1969, a small office on Broad Street in downtown Providence functioned as The Providence Center's first service site. At that time, The Center employed only a handful of people. Now, more than 500 people provide services at four service sites in Providence, Warwick, and Burrillville. In addition, The Providence Center operates many different types of residential facilities for clients throughout Providence, as well as a program at the Adult Correctional Institution.

For more than thirty years, The Providence Center has been at the forefront of behavior health treatment and program innovation. In the 1970s, the state began to close the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) where it was providing care -- albeit poor and inadequate--to Rhode Island residents with serious and persistent mental illness. The Providence Center worked in partnership with the state Department of Mental Health, Retardation and Hospitals (MHRH) and eight other private community mental health centers across the state in developing a system of care that would enable discharged state institution patients to access care in their local communities. This partnership was considered groundbreaking for its time and, even today, it is considered a national model.

Today, we at The Providence Center continue to provide community-based, outpatient care to the state's largest population of residents with serious and persistent mental illness. Over the years, our range of services has expanded greatly to include services for children and adolescents with behavior and emotional problems, and troubled employees. In 1996, we greatly enhanced our capacity to serve chemically dependent adults by acquiring Talbot Treatment Centers. In our last fiscal year, we served 9,000 Rhode Island residents in need of behavior health treatment.