Counseling Services
Wayside Youth & Family Support Network provides a wide variety of mental health counseling and family support services to children, young adults and families in Massachusetts.
Outpatient Counseling
Everyone feels extreme emotions like sadness, stress, anger and anxiety from time to time – it’s part of life. But if your child seems to be stuck in a sad state or can’t bounce back after a stressful event, it may be a good idea to seek out counseling.
Some indicators that it might be time to seek out help include: struggling in school, having a hard time making and keeping friends, difficulty sleeping or seeming tired all the time, problems managing feelings and/or inability to focus on a task. Perhaps your family is facing a major life event like a divorce or a death. Your child’s teacher or pediatrician may also help determine whether it’s time to seek counseling.
Wayside’s Family Counseling Centers offer a full range of mental health services for children, adolescents, and their families including diagnostic assessments, medication evaluation and treatment, on-call emergency services, and individual, group and family therapy.
Locations in: Framingham, Milford, Waltham and Watertown.
| Population Served | Payment | Referral Process | Referral Numbers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Children, adolescents and young adults up to 21 | Insurance Funded, including MassHealth. | Individuals may self-refer. Please contact sites directly to make appointments. |
Framingham: 508.630.5907 Milford: 508-745-6294 Waltham/Watertown: 781-966-5665 |
Population Served
Children, adolescents and young adults up to 21
Payment
Insurance Funded, including MassHealth.
Referral Process
Individuals may self-refer. Please contact sites directly to make appointments.
Referral Numbers
Framingham:
508.630.5907
Milford:
508-745-6294
Waltham/Watertown:
781-966-5665
In-Home Services
“I found Wayside when my son was three-years-old and recently diagnosed with physical, developmental and mental health issues. They became our partners, constantly supportive and helpful at all times of the day and night. Wayside’s comprehensive programs allowed us to keep our son at home.”
-Wayside In-Home Services Parent
Current language capacity includes:
- ASL
- Spanish
- Portuguese
- Haitian Creole
- Khmer
- Mandarin
- and Swahili
Wayside Youth & Family Support Network provides a variety of models of in-home services designed to help families stay together, maximize functioning, and to help each family member reach their goals. Funding and referrals for the majority of these services currently comes from the Department of Children and Families (DCF), the Department of Mental Health (DMH), and Insurance. Wayside has programs in Lowell, Framingham, Waltham, Charlton, and Milford through which Wayside services families across the Greater Boston, MetroWest, Merrimack Valley, and Central Mass regions of Massachusetts.
The Wayside In-Home Service model is designed to be as flexible and creative as needed for each family referred. Wayside’s team of staff have expertise in providing interventions that will adapt to the individual needs of each family. The variety of In-Home Service models may vary depending on the expectations of the referring agencies.
Services include:
- Therapy
- Behavior management
- Substance abuse interventions
- Skill-building
- Advocacy
- Case coordination with other providers
- Assistance with budgeting and household management
- Vocational assistance
- Referrals for aftercare services
- General parenting support/guidance
- Assistance with childcare, and transportation
What to expect:
- Once assigned to a staff person, or staff “team,” families may expect a service that is able to meet them in their natural environments (home, school, community) and is accommodating of the individual/family schedule.
- Our teams will work with families with children of all ages,
- Individualized approach to meet the family needs
- Our services are adapted to the needs of any family configuration, including intact families, foster families, adoptive families, single parent families, families with conflictual relationships between separated parents, and families with adults in nontraditional parenting roles.
Specific In-Home service models
Specific in-home service models for which Wayside is currently contracted include:
- Support & Stabilization Services—referred by the Department of Children and Families (DCF)
- Intensive Family Support Services (IFSS)—referred by the Department of Mental Health
- In-Home Behavioral Therapeutic Care (IHBTC)—referred by the Department of Mental Health
- PACT-Y (Program for Assertive Community Treatment for Youth)—referred by the Department of Mental Health
- In-Home Therapy (IHT)—insurance funded
- Therapeutic Mentoring (TM)—insurance funded
Framingham:
508-630-5907
Lowell:
978-460-8712
Milford:
508-745-6294
Charlton:
774-249-1290
Waltham:
781-966-5665
Emergency Mental Health Services
An alternative to 911 for experiencing a mental health crisis
When your child is having a mental health crisis, you may feel powerless to help. Wayside’s Youth Mobile Crisis Intervention team will partner with you and honor your family’s voice and preferences. We work to stabilize the situation, provide support, identify your needs and the ways to meet them.
Youth Mobile Crisis Intervention is a mobile, on-site, face-to-face therapeutic response to youth experiencing a behavioral health crisis. The YMCI team will identify, assess, treat, and stabilize the situation and will reduce immediate risk of danger to the youth or others. YMCI’s mobile therapeutic response includes crisis intervention, stabilization, and coordination, for up to 7 days, until the youth is stable or transferred to another level of care.
Wayside provides this service 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, in two different regions of the state. Wayside is subcontracted by Advocates, Inc., to provide YMCI services for youth and families in the MetroWest and Waltham areas. Wayside is subcontracted by Vinfen to provide YMCI services for youth and families in the Lowell area.
