Welcome to First Step of Sarasota

Transformation, Recovery, Hope

Caring for our Community

Dedicated to creating wellness and inspiring the
first step toward a better tomorrow for those with
mental health and addiction disorders.

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.

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.

Adult
Services

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Children's
Services

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Prevention
Programs

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Addiction
Treatments

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Access Center

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.
Need Help? Call 941-552-1950

News & Events

Women at Work
Women at Work
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Officials watch First Step of Sarasota County CEO Shawny Robey cut the ribbon to open the new 40-bed Community Offender Rehabilitative Treatment (CORT) program facility.
Officials open First Step facility ...
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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...
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Our Partners

FIRST STEP OF SARASOTA, INC. IS A 501 (C ) (3) ORGANIZATION. A COPY OF THE OFFICIAL REGISTRATION AND FINANCIAL INFORMATION ON CH1573 MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE DIVISION OF CONSUMER SERVICES BY CALLING TOLL FREE 800 435 7352 WITHIN THE STATE. REGISTRATION DOES NOT IMPLY ENDORSEMENT, APPROVAL OR RECOMMENDATION BY THE STATE.