The Child and Family Agency of Southeastern Connecticut has announced a new chief executive officer effective April 1, as CEO Allison Blake steps down and Chief Operating Officer Lisa Otto takes the helm.

Blake became CEO at the beginning of 2019, having previously served as senior fellow with the Annie E. Casey Foundation and as commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Children and Families. Otto has been at CFA since 2003.

Blake said part of leadership is knowing when it’s time for a leadership change and she has been feeling like it’s time, and she is thinking about what she is going to do next.

“The agency is in a stronger place today than it was prior to her tenure, and for that we are grateful,” Board Vice Chair Matt Spring said. Chair Terry Burbank said Blake has been “a real transformational leader” as the organization has gone through a lot of growth, not only geographically but in the kinds of services offered.

The nonprofit serves families through outpatient behavioral health clinics, in-home services, school-based health centers, early childhood care centers, and family resource centers.

Burbank said the board went through a formal interview process and voted on Otto’s appointment. Spring said the board has “unwavering confidence” in Otto, who he said has a comprehensive understanding of where the agency, which has about 220 employees, is and will go.

Otto came to CFA after working for Child Protective Services in Maryland, and started as supervisor of the new Functional Family Therapy program. A licensed clinical social worker, she became director of in-home programs and then senior director ― when she started to oversee early childhood programs and a clinic then located in Essex ― before becoming COO.

Blake lauded Otto for her “extraordinary” work shifting services to telehealth when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and for her ability to innovate.

“I think the CFA is about responding to changing community need and really about innovation and kind of being nimble,” Blake said.

She and Otto sat down Wednesday at CFA’s facility at 255 Hempstead St. in New London to talk about the past, present and future of the agency.

The administrative office building is being transformed into a 24/7 Urgent Crisis Center, expected to open in late spring.

“As the behavioral health crisis remains acute for children and teens, too many of them end up in emergency departments,” Otto said, where they may be sitting and waiting with no beds available. But she said staff at the UCC, a less intensive and medical setting, will administer a thorough behavioral health assessment and put together a care plan for families.

She said this kind of model is new to Connecticut and that it’s important because “families go into crisis at sort of inconvenient hours.”

The agency has offices in four towns, also including Groton, Stonington and Westbrook.

CFA expanded into Middlesex County under Blake’s tenure, first establishing the Healthy Futures in-home support program – in partnership with Middlesex Health and the Connecticut Community Doulas ― and operating outpatient services out of an office from Essex. In recent months, the outpatient clinic moved from Essex to Westbrook.

In 2021, CFA opened a Community Bridge Clinic on Vauxhall Street in New London, which provides outpatient and psychiatric services in addition to housing the New London Day Nursery.

This past fall, the agency held a soft opening for a new outpatient clinic in Pawcatuck. CFA also has a new contract in Colchester to provide mental health services for children and youth.

The agency has added school-based health centers and is still working on expanding centers into schools that don’t have them.

One of the challenges ahead is that like a lot of nonprofits, CFA has significant vacancies and is struggling to fill them, Blake said. Otto added that it can be difficult to hire behavioral health staff, because these tend to be second-shift positions serving families with more acute needs, as well as early childhood staff.

This also ties into the perennial funding challenges nonprofits face. Otto said it’s harder to recruit and retain staff when there’s not a reliable cost-of-living increase built into state contracts.