MAINESTAY

The closest thing I had to home, was at this place where I was able to grow and learn and open up and become the person I am. The love and commitment across-the-board is beyond remarkable and friendships to this day exist. If there’s something that they couldn’t achieve or help and were aware of that, they made sure to support and assist me in finding help for myself with drs and more. They help me learn basics, and supported me to go to college and not live like I was. They worked hard on communication and Trust with everyone being held accountable themselves. This place always has a special place in my heart.

Mainestay is a transitional living group home intended for young adults ages 18-25 with a mental health diagnosis and/or co-occuring substance use disorder. Mainestay is a group home with a history of client rights violations and punitive programming. With a new director the program began to move away from direct punitive programming and moved towards manipulation, gaslighting and punitive programming with the presentation of 'restorative justice'. Mainestay speaks a lot on restorative practices but misuses them and does so in a harmful and sometimes abusive matter. An example of this: two clients were being s******** abused by another client who had a known history of this behavior. when the clients bravely came forward about it, they were required sit in a circle where a clinician announced to their housemates what had happened. this was done under the pretense that the more everyone knew about the situation the less harm it would cause the victims. this situation clearly retraumatized the victims and made matters much bigger. that is just one example of the abuse of what they call 'restorative practices.' This program has a tendency to speak a lot on how all clients have choices and rights. This topic of rights is almost always immediately followed up with "you can take advantage of your rights, but there will be a conversation". that conversation is oftentimes a conversation about whether or not you belong at the program. they talk a lot about 'buying in'. and it's true. in order to survive in this program, similar to a lot of directly punitive programs, you need to do what they expect of you even if it goes against your values and what you believe. they will tell you you have a choice, but the choice will be too utilize your basic human rights or move towards homelessness. the program attempts to encourage independence, however makes this virtually impossible with the consequences residents receive when attempting to be independent. this program was intended to be a healing and safe space for young adults and at times it can be! however, the pain and suffering and often times abusive behavior from the director, state gatekeeper and clinicians moves clients away from the real healing and safety that they could be experiencing. similar to what other reviews have said, this program has a problem with staff being inadequately trained. that being said, the resident technicians they hire are almost always kind, considerate and hard working. there is real genuine love and care and compassion that comes from the lower ranked staff members they hire. those same people do the real hard work of the program. if anything good comes out of the program, it's a direct result of the hardworking lower ranked staff members. they deserve so much credit! mainestay is a very creative environment and prepandemic offered a lot of recreational activities to do. this program has pontential to promote healing and recovery, but with the current environment and leadership of the program and the state gatekeeping the treatment based off of numerical scores, it will continue to have a low success rate.

The place is very awkward but after a couple days being here the staff welcomes you with love and are very polite. The food are awesome and so are the clients.

This place saved my life when I hit rock bottom

Group Home for young people with challenges. I would not recommend, clients get harassed and issues with staff not being adequately trained. Very concerning.