By Nancy Allen-Scannell, Vice President of Public Affairs, Eliot, and Executive Director, MSPCC
A decade ago, Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (MSPCC), which was an independent organization, joined Eliot Community Human Services. I’ve had ten years to reflect on the significance of that event, and I’ve realized: this wasn’t one organization rescuing another, and it wasn’t one organization simply absorbing another’s programs. It was two organizations that were each already doing really good work finding that the work got better when we did it together.
Two Different Kinds of Strength
By 2016, Eliot had built a reputation for operational excellence. It was known as an organization that could reliably take a model of care and implement it very well at scale. MSPCC, meanwhile, was known for high-quality work in prevention innovation and policy, and for being willing to press for the reform of systems that weren’t adequately or effectively serving kids and families.
Putting all of those qualities front and center in one organization has provided for excellent outcomes and opportunities for collaboration that I could not have previously imagined. For example, MSPCC helped to build a conceptual framework for behavioral health urgent care for children and advocated for its inclusion in the Roadmap for Behavioral Health Reform which was implemented in 2023 and improves access to outpatient mental health care for Massachusetts residents. Eliot, through its Community Behavioral Health Centers, has implemented the model, which is helping thousands of children every year.
The MSPCC-Eliot partnership is a powerful one, with each organization bringing complementary skills to the table. As a singular organization, we are able to implement programmatic changes and bring our findings from implementation back into the policy conversation. The Eliot and MSPCC team execute their work with efficacy, diligence and impact, while our deep involvement in the policy realm helps ensure financial and programmatic stability.
Greater Than the Sum of Our Parts
The Family Resource Center System provides another clear example of how Eliot and MSPCC together are “greater than the sum of our parts.” The legislative framework that created FRC’s marked a shift away from the former system which punished “stubborn” and “bad” children and toward assisting children and their families before they reach a courtroom. MSPCC led the advocacy effort behind this reform and remains engaged in ensuring that it continues to be well implemented. And, I am proud to say that, Eliot’s FRC is consistently acknowledged as one of the strongest in the state.
The same pattern of impact shows up in smaller, less visible ways constantly — oftentimes, a family connected to clinical services through one part of the organization also ends up benefiting from a community-based program that exists because of relationships cultivated through development or advocacy work. Those aren’t two separate organizations occasionally bumping into each other. That’s one organization with more surface area across a continuum of care than either of us had alone – again, representing a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
A Wider Professional World
We know the MSPCC-Eliot merger had a powerful effect on the communities we serve, but one of the more understated benefits of the merger has been what it’s done for the team of people doing the work every day.
MSPCC, on its own, had some capacity for professional growth and development; however, we did not have it at the scale or depth that comes with being part of a larger organization. Today, as a subsidiary of Eliot, a staff person walks into a much bigger landscape of organizational services, a deeper bench of supervisory expertise, and has access to more resources for training and credentialing. Providing people with paths to discover an interest or aspiration and follow a supported path to get there.
That’s not a small thing. Retention and growth in this field depend on people seeing a future for themselves inside an organization to which they feel genuinely connected. Ten years into our merger with Eliot, that future looks considerably bigger for our employees than it did before.
Why MSPCC Kept Its Name
People sometimes ask why MSPCC didn’t simply fold into Eliot; why, ten years later, there’s still a distinct organizational identity and brand for our work.
Part of the answer is mission-specific. Work with children and families is complex — clinically, administratively, financially — and that has led some organizations to step back from it. MSPCC’s visibility within Eliot and the wider community has helped to keep our collective commitment to kids and families strong. It has also allowed us to continue leveraging the expertise, reputation and partnerships MSPCC has cultivated since our founding in 1878 to continually improve outcomes for children.
The other part of the answer is that the nearly-150 years of MSPCC history is worth preserving. MSPCC has been at the forefront of some of the most significant advancements in child welfare, and child mental health and there is still much more to be done. The depth of child and family expertise within our combined organization is really impressive and will ensure that together we remain deeply engaged in policy and practice improvement efforts for many years. The early returns on our partnership suggest it’s been worth the patience it’s taken to build.
Care Across a Lifespan
When I think about the most meaningful thing this merger has unlocked over the years, the first word that comes to mind is “lifespan.”
Individually, both organizations were already present at meaningful, often difficult moments in people’s lives. Together, we’re positioned to be present across more of clients’ lives than either of us could have been before. We are here from infancy, through adulthood to help with basic needs, trauma, behavioral health and developmental challenges. We know that issues often arise in the gaps that happen in transitional moments and along the seams between systems. An organization built to walk alongside someone across decades, rather than across a single program or a single age bracket, is a meaningful and effective way to minimize those gaps in care.
The importance of continuity isn’t limited to the measurable outcomes (of which there are many) or by advocacy successes. We see it most profoundly in communication with former clients and their families who tell us about the impact of the care they or their loved one received and the understanding that it took all of us to provide that support.
What This Anniversary Represents
The MSPCC-Eliot story is one of timing and complementary strength. It’s a story about two organizations that were each doing meaningful, difficult work independently and became more effective at that work by coming together.
This merger has been successful in large part because of the intentionality and thoughtfulness with which each step was taken. It took deliberate effort to keep MSPCC’s identity intact and to integrate advocacy and combine services into a single continuum. It took dedication, vision and a lot of work on the part of our Boards, organizational leaders and our staff. I believe that’s worth honoring. We are, ten years on, genuinely and uniquely more than what we were apart. And that has truly deepened the impact we’re able to deliver for the children, families, individuals, and communities we serve.
