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Council hears request to extend OnPoint counseling contract for violence-reduction program
Summary
City officials asked the council to extend an existing counseling agreement with OnPoint’s Project RISE to September to expand wraparound services for people affected by gun violence; staff said the program has enrolled about 13–20 clients and aims to reach 50, but no formal vote was recorded at the meeting.
City officials asked the Syracuse Common Council on an agenda item to extend an existing counseling agreement with OnPoint’s Project RISE through September so the program can continue serving people referred by the city’s gun-violence reduction effort.
Latif Kenzie, a staff member with the mayor’s office’s gun violence reduction effort, said the contract start was delayed and “they just started doing counseling in February, so we would like to try to expand it to September.” He said the extension would keep all other contract terms the same.
The request matters, Kenzie said, because the program is intended to provide therapy and outreach tied to the city’s violence-reduction strategy. “They already started,” Kenzie said, but later discussion made clear enrollment has not yet reached the program’s targeted caseload.
Yolanda Segars, identified as director of Project RISE at OnPoint, described how staff are using the funds. She said the program has developed outreach rubrics, a referral sheet and progress-monitoring tools to identify barriers to participation and increase engagement. “Outreach was very important,” Segars said, and added OnPoint meets weekly with the therapist to identify people needing services and to coordinate with probation, parole and other referral sources.
Segars said Project RISE’s therapeutic rate is $180 per hour when clinicians meet with clients, but administrative and outreach work is compensated at lower rates and invoiced differently. She also said OnPoint retains a 10% administrative fee on the contract and that therapist hours currently range from about 10 to 20 hours a week depending on needs.
Council members asked about enrollment and per-client billing. Kenzie and Segars said the program presently serves “between 13 and 20” clients and that staff are “working our way up to 50.” Segars described outreach steps, including on-site assessments at the justice center when participants were incarcerated and efforts to locate people whose reported addresses were not accurate.
No formal vote on the extension was recorded on the transcript. Council members asked to convene a committee meeting for more detailed budget and operational questions; at the meeting Segars said staff would meet again and that the councilor would “arrange a committee meeting” to discuss the item in more detail.
What’s next: councilors asked for a follow-up committee discussion before final action so the council can review the operational breakdown, bilingual-therapist needs, administrative fee and enrollment milestones.
Speakers quoted in this article are listed in the record and were present during discussion; the council did not record a final vote on the extension in the transcript provided.
