Show Notes
In this episode of the Dover Download podcast, Deputy City Manager Christopher Parker chats with Jennifer Elliott and Christopher Kozak of Community Partners, continuing the podcast's look at nonprofits serving the Dover community.
Kozak, the organization's president and CEO, and Elliott, the organization's communications manager, describe Community Partners as a large social service agency serving primarily Strafford County, with a mission of helping people participate fully in their communities. It is both the county's designated community mental health center and its designated area agency, supporting people with developmental disabilities and acquired brain disorders through case management, early supports and services, therapy, psychiatric care, and residential programming with more than 120 home providers. Its rapid response mobile crisis team, dispatched through 988, serves the county and neighboring regions.
They also discuss the Aging and Disability Resource Center, formerly ServiceLink, which handles Medicare Part D open enrollment and the Choices for Independence program that helps older adults stay in their homes. Recent growth includes acquiring Southeastern New Hampshire Alcohol and Drug Abuse Services, bringing the Turning Point residential program and the Kane House sober living program under the agency, and purchasing a 28,000-square-foot building in Somersworth. Kozak explains the coming transition to a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic model, which will broaden eligibility and better integrate mental health, substance use, and physical health care.
The conversation also covers the agency's board and advisory councils, its more than 500 employees, internship and volunteer opportunities, mental health first aid training that has reached over 2,400 people, and how listeners can get involved.
In This Week in Dover History, we look back at the General Sullivan Bridge, which opened across Little Bay on Sept. 5, 1934, carried traffic and later cyclists and pedestrians for decades, and is now being demolished under a state project expected to be complete by early 2027.
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