Our Compass Center Campus is in need of a total makeover! Our vision is to provide hope, reach more children and be the model facility for treatment of children with addictions and mental health disorders. This is a partial list of our dream….we will be focusing a capital campaign on this dream in the near future!
Completely remodeling and refurbishing our current building.
Adding a new education center; classroom, computer lab, vocation skills workshop, and creative arts. Part of which will be an indoor physical activities area for yoga, martial arts and basketball.
Refurbishing and adding to our current dorms, increasing our capacity.
Caring for the land; creating a hydroponic garden for veggies and herbs, thereby teaching “caring skills” and “providing for others.”
Outdoor exercise trail; helping them to understand the importance of ones body and health.
Collaboration with pet shelters to teach training and how to care for others; fostering the realization of unconditional love and worthiness.
Compass Center Is located on 4 acres in Punta Gorda. Compass began in Sarasota in 2002 and moved to Punta Gorda in 2009. It is a 120 day dual diagnosis residential center for boys and girls 13-17 years old with drug, alcohol and co-occurring mental health disorders. Our clientele covers all of the socioeconomic spectrum and come from various locations including 14 counties in Florida.
Please consider a donation to our Compass Center Dream Naming opportunities will be available as well.
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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.
*Community partners are businesses that have chosen to support our organization as a community partner sponsor. If you are interested please click here for the sponsorship form.
Mental Health 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.
Welcome to First Step of Sarasota
A UNITED EFFORT Serving Sarasota, MANATEE, DESOTO & Charlotte 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.
