This interview with David Boscia, Chief Clinical Officer, originally appeared in The Providence Business News
When David Boscia arrived at Newport Mental Health in July 2020, he quickly helped the Middletown-based health center expand and improve to become one of Rhode Island’s leading mental wellness clinics.
Achieving status as a federal contingently Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic is the most exciting project that Boscia, Newport Mental Health’s chief clinical officer, helped spearhead at the clinic, he said. To accomplish this goal, Boscia drew on 27 years of experience with clients and understanding Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration-endorsed industry best practices to deliver top treatment and care in Newport County.
“The first thing I did when I got here was to improve the quality of the services,” Boscia said. “The second thing we did was we started to develop more of our children’s services because we had a very small children’s services division.”
During Boscia’s tenure, Newport Mental Health has extended services to Aquidneck Island’s middle and high schools. And through its healthy transitions program, the clinic provides intensive outpatient services to 16- to 25-year-olds experiencing first-episode psychosis breaks.
“We catch it early. We wrap services around them and their families, and we get them back to school or back to work as quickly as possible,” Boscia said.
Emergency services is another programming jewel sparkling under Boscia’s leadership at the clinic. Newport Mental Health has enlarged these services from basics mandated by law to include a round-the-clock direct-connect hotline for anyone living, working or studying on Aquidneck Island, including Salve Regina University students.
Callers don’t have to navigate through an answering service – as they might when calling a doctor’s office with pressing after-hours health concerns. Clinicians answering Newport Mental Health’s 24/7/365 hotline will dispatch a team with a mobile-crisis clinician and a peer to the location where help is needed. A peer is someone who experienced and overcame a mental health or substance use issue, or it’s a relative of someone who has.
“When we respond to a behavioral health emergency, it’s usually pretty intense,” Boscia said. “With just a clinician, it’s hard to de-escalate. [A peer is] able to help de-escalate that crisis quicker and with empathy because you have somebody who’s gone through, probably, something similar.”
A native Rhode Islander, Boscia gained his first professional experience working in a Hackensack, N.J., group home near where he was pursuing his bachelor’s degree in psychology, at Fairleigh Dickinson University.
While earning his master’s degree in social work at Barry University in Miami, he interned with the nonprofit residential child-and-family services Florida Sheriffs Youth Ranches, founded by the Florida Sheriffs Association in 1957 to help prevent juvenile delinquency and develop strong, lawful, resilient and productive citizens.
Boscia then ran groups for clients with serious mental illness from a Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., community mental health center, as well as from Philadelphia’s Mt. Sinai Hospital. While at Mt. Sinai, he also ran individual therapy for people with mental and substance use issues through a partial hospital program. He returned home to Rhode Island after the hospital closed.
Boscia spent 23 years filling a variety of roles with Gateway Health Care in Pawtucket, later acquired by Lifespan Corp. He began as an emergency services clinician and, four years later, led the team working with clients with complex mental health and substance use challenges to help them live independently in the community rather than be institutionalized in state hospitals.
Promoted in 2004 to manage Gateway’s community outreach efforts – including outpatient programming and community support teams – Boscia held that position for 15 years before joining Newport Mental Health.
Boscia ran Newport Mental Health’s residential and community support programs for two years as clinical director before being tapped as chief clinical officer.
Among other responsibilities, he oversees more than 30 clinical programs, including psychiatry; collaborates to develop housing support and emergency shelter programs; and serves on the Freedom Apartments board, ensuring a safe, vibrant care environment for residents with complex health and behavioral health challenges and illnesses.
“What sets David apart is his ability to consistently show up in all levels of care and business as a leader, partner, colleague and caregiver,” said Danya Gladstein, Newport Mental Health’s CEO and president.
