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Key to merger: Focus on the mission
YOUNGSTOWN
Focusing on the mission is the key to overcoming the “growing pains” associated with merging the Burdman Group and Family Service Agency into Compass Family and Community Services.
Compass’ first board of directors meeting was July 23, less than four months ago.
Since then, Joseph Caruso, president and chief executive officer, and David Arnold, vice president and chief operating officer, have been working overtime to meld two different cultures — ways of doing and looking at things — into one smooth working unit.
Compass has 100 full-time and 200 part-time employees in 11 facilities in Mahoning and Trumbull counties. Its administrative offices are at the former Family Service Agency at 535 Marmion Ave., and its fiscal offices are at the former Burdman facility at 284 Broadway on the North Side.
Compass combines Burdman, headed by Caruso, which primarily provided long-term services for mentally ill clients; and Arnold’s Family Services, which provided situational or temporary assistance to deal with a death in the family or financial difficulties, for instance.
Each agency brought different sets of programs and clients and expertise and skills, Arnold said.
“In any process, there are challenges, but because the core values of Burdman and Family Services were so similar we are progressing very well,” Caruso said.
Arnold said he is pleasantly surprised at how well the blending of the agency cultures is going.
Implementing board policies and handling day-to-day things such as employee vacations, however, is taking a little longer than expected, Caruso said.
But the “growing pains,” as Caruso called them, are worth the effort to create an agency he says has a more comprehensive services grouping — a marriage of services, he called it — that can help the whole family.
“One of the things we pride ourselves on is a grouping of services with little overlap with other organizations. Not every client will utilize every service we have, but they are available if needed,” Caruso said.
The whole premise of the merger was to better serve people, not chase money, he said.
That being said, Caruso thinks the merger will result in savings and increased funding.
When the merger was announced, he said it would produce efficiencies that would free up money for programs and services; and through the integration of programs and services, clients would benefit from a service-delivery system that will better meet their needs by eliminating redundant paperwork and wait times for service.
Also, Caruso believes the larger Compass Agency is better able than Burdman and Family Service individually to attract grants from organizations such as the Youngstown and Raymond J. Wean foundations and other funding sources such as the Mahoning County Board of Health, the Trumbull County Mental Health and Recovery Board and the United Way of Youngstown and the Mahoning Valley.
Caruso said Compass has adopted the concept that it must “earn” support from funding sources by providing efficient and effective and compassionate services.
“We do client-satisfaction surveys on everything we do,” Arnold said.
“Our intention is not to be all things to all people, but to be very, very good at what we do and partner with other organizations that do what they do very, very well,” Caruso said.