Five Questions With: Dennis Roy

Dennis Roy is president and chief executive officer of East Bay Community Action Program.
Dennis Roy is president and chief executive officer of East Bay Community Action Program.

Dennis Roy is president and chief executive officer of East Bay Community Action Program, a nonprofit organization that merged recently with East Bay Center. With more than three decades of senior leadership positions in the nonprofit arena, Roy possesses extensive experience in consumer advocacy, policy development, fund development and administration. Roy, a board member of the Rhode Island Health Center Association and the Rhode Island Community Action Association, talked with Providence Business News about the merger of nonprofit organizations EBCAP and East Bay Center – which did not trigger staff reductions – and how that merger will impact their respective constituencies.

PBN: Can you describe the respective roles and responsibilities of East Bay Community Action Program and East Bay Center?

ROY: EBCAP, with 400 employees, serves approximately 25,000 low- to moderate-income East Bay residents of all ages. Our early childhood programs include, for example, Head Start and Early Head Start services; Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Feeding Program; Even Start, a family literacy program in Newport; and Healthy Families America, a home visiting program for pregnant women and parents of young children that focuses on maternal and child health outcomes, education and family needs.

Our Youth Centers offer academic skills and employment support; crisis intervention and counseling is available for youth and their families; and Youth Success supports pregnant and parenting youth, ages 12-20. Medical and dental care, tax preparation assistance and home heating and energy assistance are available for families and seniors; victims of crime can receive information and referral services. EBCAP’s Safety Net Program provides our clients with food pantry and prescription assistance and emergency funding, as available; our East Bay Coalition for the Homeless provides emergency housing assistance and maintains supportive housing apartments.

- Advertisement -

EBCAP’s assistance to seniors in need include case management, the Retired Senior Volunteer Program, Foster Grandparents Program and the Ocean State Café, which provides meals in a social setting.

For the newly merged organization, EBCAP is responsible for strategic planning and administrative oversight; management of budgets, grants, human resources and information technology; development and public relations.

With 125 employees, the East Bay Center provides behavioral health and substance abuse services to some 3,000 patients, some of whom may also access EBCAP’s services. The East Bay Center, which will retain its name and operate as a program of EBCAP, offers 24-hour emergency services/crisis intervention, counseling and psychiatric services, medication prescription and monitoring, substance abuse and opioid treatment services and community support programs for individuals with serious and persistent mental illness or substance abuse issues.

PBN: Which cities and towns does EBCAP serve and who are its clients?

ROY: East Bay Community Action Program serves the 10 cities and towns in Rhode Island’s East Bay: Newport, Middletown, Portsmouth, Tiverton, Little Compton, Jamestown, East Providence, Barrington, Bristol and Warren. The agency serves approximately 25,000 individuals a year from birth through senior citizens including low- to moderate-income families, the unemployed and underemployed, those on fixed incomes, single residents, military personnel and families with children.

PBN: What was the motivation for the merger?

ROY: The primary motivation for the merger was to improve the overall health care for thousands of people living in the East Bay by integrating primary health care, behavioral health care, dental care, social services and basic human needs under one roof with our patients as our focus. For example, a patient may exhibit symptoms of depression, which are complicated by diabetes and food insecurity; EBCAP can directly support such a patient struggling with all of these or similar challenges.

PBN: What are the key benefits to the organizations and to your clients and patients by merging?

ROY: The merger will allow our agency to provide high-quality, integrated services for our patients and clients and, at the same time, meet the changing environment in the health care world as insurers and managed care organizations move payment methodologies to ‘value-based approaches.’ East Bay Center patients will benefit by having greater access to primary health care, dental services, social services and basic needs programs, and EPCAP clients and patients will have greater access to behavioral health services.

The merger also increases the agency’s ability to secure state and federal grants, and brings improved efficiencies in such administrative functions as information technology, finance, billing, grant writing and human resources.

PBN: Do you anticipate any challenges arising from the merger, such as merging two different company cultures, logistical challenges or otherwise, and how will you manage them?

ROY: EBCAP and the East Bay Center have been carefully planning this merger for more than a year. Several cross-entity planning teams were formed, and meet frequently, to look at all the important aspects of bringing the two organizations together, including the mergers of the organizations’ respective electronic medical records, billing systems, personnel policies and practices, information technology systems and space needs.

EBCAP continues to maintain this strong teamwork structure at every level of the organization, and we will continue to identify and address any and all issues as they arise. Frequent communication and implementing problem-solving strategies as soon as issues are identified will help us manage any difficulties that may arise.

The primary goal of providing an integrated system of care that addresses patients’ primary health, behavioral health, dental and social services needs is our common focus; all of our efforts are geared to this goal.

No posts to display