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As Crotched Mountain closes, other agencies say they'll step up

Keene Sentinel - 6/25/2020

Jun. 25--With the Crotched Mountain Foundation planning to close its Greenfield campus by November, area agencies that serve people with disabilities say they're ready to bridge the gap.

The campus houses Crotched Mountain School -- which provides special education services to students from kindergarten into early adulthood -- as well as a residential program for adults with disabilities.

The upcoming closure was announced Tuesday evening. Officials said the school and adult residential program were unsustainable, despite attempts to cut costs.

The school serves 79 students ages 8 to 21, primarily from New Hampshire, other New England states and New York, according to officials. There are 24 residents in the adult program.

The organization is also a temporary residence for kids removed from their homes by the N.H. Division for Children, Youth and Families.

Officials with several local organizations said they are saddened by the news of Crotched Mountain's closure, but ready to help those who will be affected.

Monadnock Developmental Services, on Railroad Street in Keene, is one of 10 nonprofit agencies funded by the N.H. Bureau of Developmental Services to arrange assistance for children and adults with developmental disabilities.

Executive Director Alan Greene said MDS provides some of those services itself, but it mostly works with about two dozen other agencies in the region, including Crotched Mountain, to find the right services for its clients.

Residential programs are one of the services MDS outsources. It currently has five clients in Crotched Mountain's adult residential program, Greene said.

Greene added that several other providers have already reached out to ask how they can help once Crotched Mountain closes.

"We develop creative solutions, and we have been doing that for 40 years," he said. "Give us a problem, we solve it, and I have every confidence we can figure it out."

At Cedarcrest Center for Children with Disabilities, on Maple Avenue in Keene, CEO and President Cathy Gray said Crotched Mountain's students probably wouldn't come to the center because it specializes in a different set of needs.

Cedarcrest primarily serves children -- from birth to age 21 -- who are developmentally and physically disabled, while Crotched Mountain is focused on children with behavioral and emotional difficulties, such as autism.

"Most of their students would not be appropriate for services at Cedarcrest," Gray said in an email, "though there are other providers who specialize in the needs of children with behavioral and emotional needs."

One of them is Compass Innovative Behavior Strategies, a Concord-based company with an autism clinic on Main Street in Marlborough.

CEO Dan Dube said the company will be able to accommodate additional families when Crotched Mountain closes, as the Marlborough facility is in the process of expanding.

The Concord-based company provides therapeutic services for children with autism-spectrum disorder, among other developmental difficulties. The program is similar to Crotched Mountain's Ready Set Connect Autism Centers in Concord, Tilton and Manchester -- which will remain open -- Dube said.

The Marlborough location is working with only 10 families right now due to the restrictions put in place for COVID-19, but he hopes it can soon serve upward of 60.

"From our perspective," Dube said, "we will do whatever we can to try and help out families in the Monadnock Region or across the state affected by this."

Olivia Belanger can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1439, or obelanger@keenesentinel.com. Follow her on Twitter @OBelangerKS.

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