Vermont Business Magazine The Department of Disabilities, Aging and Independent Living (DAIL) announced today that Champlain Community Services (CCS) has begun initiating operational control of Green Mountain Support Services (GMSS), a Specialized Services Agency (SSA) based out of Morrisville, Vermont, providing Developmental Services, Adult Family Care, and Brain Injury Services to 122 Vermonters. This action by CCS comes after DAIL issued a notice of SSA de-designation to GMSS on February 27, 2023.
All SSAs are required to meet certain criteria and undergo periodic review by DAIL to ensure that the SSA designation criteria are met. DAIL’s most recent re-designation review of GMSS identified multiple deficiencies requiring corrective action.
The Developmental Services State Program Standing Committee recommended provisional designation in October 2021, which DAIL assigned while working to support GMSS’s efforts to make improvements for unconditional re-designation. Although GMSS made intermittent progress by early 2023, DAIL still had significant concerns with GMSS’s operations. Accordingly, DAIL Commissioner Monica White issued the notice of de-designation to GMSS.
Following DAIL’s de-designation notice to GMSS, Champlain Community Services (CCS), an SSA based out of Colchester, Vermont, stepped forward to initiate operational control of GMSS to enable GMSS to quickly return to good standing. CCS’s action ensures that GMSS consumers will be able to continue receiving services, GMSS staff will retain their jobs, and GMSS’s operations will be stabilized and strengthened with CCS’s expertise and leadership at the helm. Because CCS will assume direct operational control, DAIL has returned GMSS to provisional designation status.
“I am grateful to CCS for being willing and able to step in and stabilize their fellow SSA,” stated DAIL Commissioner Monica White. “This is the best possible outcome for Vermonters who are served by GMSS. I am confident that CCS will be able to implement needed changes at GMSS to assure the organization is on solid footing for years to come.”
About the Department of Disabilities, Aging & Independent Living (DAIL):
Our mission is to make Vermont the best state in which to grow old or to live with a disability - with dignity, respect, and independence.
3.13.2023. Vermont Department of Disabilities, Aging & Independent Living (DAIL). Waterbury. www.dail.vermont.gov
