Grafton in Action – January 2022

February 28, 2022

As we head into a new year, I would like to take a moment to reflect on the past 12 months at Grafton. I believe 2021 can be summed up in two words: growth and resilience. 
For nearly two years, our team has taken extraordinary measures to care for clients during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to our employees’ dedication and hard work, we have come through the crisis financially stable. This has allowed us to pursue exciting opportunities for growth beyond our home state of Virginia.

In many parts of the country, overburdened healthcare systems and ongoing systemic issues have left individuals with nowhere to turn for the behavioral health services they, often times desperately, need. Without organizations like ours, children and adults with complex needs often go untreated, receive ineffective services, or spend days in emergency rooms waiting to be admitted to a hospital that was not designed to support them. We know they deserve better.
 
To help address this enormous challenge, we are actively pursuing opportunities to bring Grafton’s services to under-resourced areas, starting with western Maryland and central Minnesota.
 
Last fall, we began offering our programming through Maryland Salem Children’s Trust, a nonprofit in the Appalachian Mountains that has been serving vulnerable children since 1979. With financial, administrative, and strategic assistance from Grafton, Salem was able to update its facilities and reopen its doors to provide housing, education, and therapy to children with intellectual, developmental, and complex mental health challenges.
 
Grafton also purchased and renovated a facility that we will operate as a psychiatric residential treatment center in Cold Spring, Minnesota, which is slated to open in just a few weeks. The new location will offer short-term housing and educational services for up to 30 youth who are challenged by complex disabilities. Supporting this population has always been our mission, and expanding our programming will ensure more individuals have the opportunity to live happier, fuller lives.
 
With you as our partners, Grafton is well positioned to continue growing and evolving, regardless of the challenges that come our way. Thank you for working with us to meet the needs of vulnerable children and adults, wherever they may be.

Read the full newsletter here.