Protecting Children, Preserving Families, Strengthening Communities

Northeast Parent and Child Society, Inc. and
Parsons Child and Family Center approve plans
to affiliate agencies on July 1, 2012

Two of the Capital Region’s oldest and most influential human service agencies have decided to coordinate activities.

On February 22^nd, board members of Parsons Child and Family Center and Northeast Parent & Child Society approved an “affiliation agreement” between the two agencies effective July 1 of this year.   

“The idea is to coordinate the child and family mission activities of Parsons and Northeast,” said Parsons CEO, Ray Schimmer.  He goes on to state emphatically that this is not a merger.  “Collaboration of services will be favored over combination of services.  It is important that we retain the identities and realities of organizations with such long and rich histories.” 

The plan approved by board members of Parsons and Northeast has the two agencies “equal affiliates” under a new, yet to be formed, parent company named Northern Rivers Family Services.   Northern Rivers will be staffed by current administrators of both agencies and led initially by Schimmer with daily operations at both agencies supervised by Northeast President and CEO John Henley. 

Northern Rivers will coordinate the activities of Parsons and Northeast ensuring that children and families will have access to whatever services they need in either agency.  Support services such as development, communications and quality assurance will be pooled from both agencies and directed by Northern Rivers.  

Memos sent to employees shared the future plans and stated that both organizations were financially solid and that layoffs were not required as part of the affiliation.  “We hope that by leveraging the advantage of a successful affiliation we will, eventually, increase jobs,” said Schimmer. 

“By bringing these two organizations together,” Schimmer said, “we will eventually achieve levels of specialization and excellence we can only dream about as a single organization.  Combining our resources will allow us to offer better services and create a stronger business model as we face the future.”

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