Communities for People (CFP) opened our doors in 1976 in Massachusetts after our founder, Joseph Leavy, recognized that youth who could not live at home with their families would benefit from living in home-like settings in their community rather than in institutions. Three years later, our current CEO, Craig Gordon, joined Joe’s team and in 1980, Craig crossed state lines to become our first Rhode Island Regional Director, overseeing the expansion of the agency’s services.
As the decades passed, our work in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island grew significantly. We will always have residential programs for youth in both states, and are proud to work with foster families, provide a wide spectrum of family therapy services, and additional support for older youth who are aging out of the foster care system. In the early 2000s, we took on a new kind of partnership with the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in Massachusetts, serving over 1,000 families a year as a lead agency and educational coordinators to help ensure families receiving support through any DCF can access the services they need from other contracted providers. Having firsthand experience with growing a nonprofit, we also began providing management support to smaller, grassroots nonprofits around the same time.
In 2022, Joe retired from his long-held position as CEO and passed the reins on to Craig, who by this time had served as our COO for eight years. Craig now oversees 180+ staff members across both Massachusetts and Rhode Island, ensuring we remain firmly grounded in our roots and culture of providing individualized, high-quality support to youth and families facing extraordinary challenges.
FOUNDER’S STORY
Joseph M. Leavey
Founder
Joseph M. Leavey, founded Communities for People (CFP) in 1976. He has held several distinguished positions in the field of child and youth welfare services in Massachusetts, including Director of the Placement Division of Child Guardianship, Commissioner of the Department of Youth Services, President of the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers, Chairman of the Children’s League, Chairman of the Special Commission on Foster Care, and President of the State Advisory Board for the Department of Children and Families (DCF). In 1980 CFP expanded to Rhode Island where Joe assumed a leadership role in the development of adolescent residential and outreach programs. Today Communities for People is offering a continuum of care through foster care services, residential and independent living programs, and home based services in both Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
When Joe was Commissioner of Youth Services he began to deinstitutionalize youth and create community-based programs. His vision was that youth were better served in small group settings similar to their homes. Joe also believes in the importance of Provider collaboration and was instrumental in the development of many provider networks in Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Under Joe’s leadership CFP began to provide Management Services to human service agencies that needed financial and management assistance. Joe’s commitment to evidence-based treatment led to the creation of two MIS utilization programs. Placement Solutions in Rhode Island and the Family Reunification Network in Massachusetts.