PHOENIX — A longtime Arizona foster care provider is offloading a lot of its work amid financial struggles.
Starting February 10th, most behavioral health services provided by Arizona’s Children Association will be taken over by Spectrum Healthcare.
The transition will impact 2,700 -2,800 foster kids and their families according to both groups.
Spectrum Healthcare also said they would be acquiring some of AzCA’s staff.
"It’s not a merger and it’s not actually like a straight acquisition," said Jessi Hans, Vice President of Corporate Communications with Spectrum Healthcare. "We’re taking on the members that were receiving behavioral health services."
Hans said they notified the new client list early last week.
"It is fairly quick," she said. "But we are well poised to be able to take that on."
This shift comes amid financial concerns for Arizona’s Children Association.
AzCA has been providing foster care services in Arizona for more than 110 years, according to its website. The organization has done foster care recruitment campaigns on 12News in 2021 and 2022.
On Wednesday, the I-Team was able to search on Google to find Arizona’s Children Association board meeting records on the not-for-profit’s website.
Minutes from late 2023 detailed financial losses in the millions for AzCA.
The meeting minutes also included other statements like “Finances are not looking good” and “Accounting team is stressed” and showed the organization in a forbearance agreement with their bank.
About an hour after we emailed the not-for-profit with questions about the minutes, the documents were no longer accessible and the website now showing “no results found.”
A marketing firm sent a statement for AzCA on Friday afternoon.
It said that it’s been a "very difficult few years" for Arizona’s Children Association and that they’d been experiencing "financial loss since 2016." It cited COVID and staffing as challenging factors.
The statement, in part, went on to say that the "significant financial losses" caused them to downsize. Later, the statement says it "became evident that there is not a way for AzCA to financially sustain" some behavioral health programs. You can read the full statement from AzCA at the end of the article.
AzCA said it plans to continue providing certain specializing behavioral health services and child welfare and prevention programs statewide.
In response to the AzCA Board Meeting records, the marketing firm wrote over email:
We are currently looking into how these documents became public facing as it seems there was a technical error and a breach in the security of our system.
The marketing firm said all responses can be attributed to Jacob Schmitt, President and CEO at AzCA.
As for the transition, Hans said the children and families who are being transferred shouldn’t have their services interrupted and they want a smooth transition.
"I won’t speculate on the financial situation of Arizona’s Children," Hans said. I will say there’s such a great need in Arizona for behavioral health services that really we collaborate with other organizations because of that need."
Hans said Spectrum Healthcare says they have experiencing doing this sort of takeover before with a provider in Tucson. If you have questions about the transition, you can contact Spectrum Healthcare at 877-634-7333.
You can read AzCA's full statement below:
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