First Step - The First Step Toward a Better Tomorrow

Support for Caring Hearts still welcome

Those who made it to the luncheon on Sept. 15 and those who didn't can still donate to First Step's Mothers and Infants program.

You can bid to win a variety of great items offered in the Caring Hearts auction, which continues until Sept. 22.
You can donate to First Step and specify that your donation support the Mothers and Infants program.

Donate to the Mothers and Infants program

Welcome to First Step of Sarasota

A UNITED EFFORT Serving Sarasota, MANATEE and DESOTO counties.

For more than 50 years, we have been "Caring for Our Community" by providing affordable, evidence-based behavioral healthcare services to children, adolescents, adults, seniors and their families who struggle with mental-health and substance-use issues.

July 2020 saw two organizations with this mission — First Step of Sarasota and Coastal Behavioral Healthcare — join to provide better service more cost-effectively. The leadership and staff of this new, stronger First Step of Sarasota Inc. know that while the job is never done, we succeed every time a family is reunited, a person with a mental illness is well again, or a child threatening suicide is saved.

We celebrate every time an individual achieves his or her self-determined goals for health, life, and well-being.

Our Programs

Services

Treatment & Prevention Programs

First Step of Sarasota offers innovative and comprehensive mental-health and substance use programs for adults and children, including inpatient, outpatient and telehealth services. If you or someone you know is experiencing mental health or substance use challenges, First Step of Sarasota can help. We offer innovative treatment programs for both children and adults to help them transform their lives and conquer their challenges by providing customized mental health and substance use treatments to our patients.

Get Help Now

Immediate counseling and referral services to individuals who are experiencing a mental health or substance abuse crisis. Crisis counseling, referral resource, family intervention, substance use and mental health screening. Walk ins are welcome.

Fees &
Insurances

Client Resources
& Forms

Frequently Asked
Questions

For more information about our programs, or to speak confidentially with one of us, please fill out the short form below. We look forward to hearing from you.

Detail image of place settings at the Caring Hearts Luncheon

Photo gallery of Caring Hearts Lunc...

The Caring Hearts event supports First Step's Mothers and Infants Program, a substance-abuse tr...

Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Founda...

The Sarasota Memorial Healthcare Foundation has awarded a $50,000 grant to support First Step of Sar...

2021 Caring Hearts Luncheon resched...

3 Join First Step of Sarasota Board...

SARASOTA, Fla., Nov. 10, 2020 — First Step of Sarasota continues to build on the strategic positio...

First Step launches teams to respon...

COMMUNITY BEHAVIORAL HEALTH RESPONSE TEAMSMobile Response Team (MRT) & Behavioral Health Respons...

First Step of Sarasota Announces Fo...

SARASOTA, Fla., Dec. 15, 2020 — First Step of Sarasota today announced the formation of a Behavior...

Longtime Sarasota County Sheriff Tom Knight

First Step of Sarasota Names Sherif...

SARASOTA, Fla., Nov. 17, 2020 — First Step of Sarasota continues to build on the strategic positio...

First Step Suicide Prevention Video...

First Step Suicide Prevention video. For more than 50 years, we have been "Caring for Our Community"...

Tracey Weeden, head of First Step of Sarasota

Are Minorities More At Risk of Ment...

Local broadcast news outlet WSNN has done an interview with Tracey Weeden, head of First Step of Sar...

First Step and Coastal Behavioral H...

SARASOTA, Fla., July 1, 2020 – After a nine-month consolidation process, First Step of Sarasota an...

Transformation, Recovery, Hope

Caring for our Community

Support for Caring Hearts still welcome

Those who made it to the luncheon on Sept. 15 and those who didn't can still donate to First Step's Mothers and Infants program.

You can bid to win a variety of great items offered in the Caring Hearts auction, which continues until Sept. 22.

You can donate to First Step and specify that your donation support the Mothers and Infants program.

Welcome to First Step of Sarasota

A UNITED EFFORT Serving Sarasota, MANATEE and DESOTO counties.

Treatment & Prevention Programs

Adult
Services

Children's
Services

Prevention
Programs

Addiction
Treatments

First Step Walk-In Access Center

Do You Need Help for Someone Else?