We welcome COPE Center to our family of services!

On May 1, 2021, Oaks officially announced a merger with COPE Center in Essex County. Headquartered in Montclair, COPE services and locations will remain the same and continue to provide high-quality, compassionate care to individuals and families in their local communities. COPE Center has been strengthening communities by helping people overcome challenges with drugs, alcohol, family and AIDS since 1971.

The new partnership expands Oaks’ geographic reach in North Jersey and brings together two organizations dedicated to serving children, adults and families. Read more about the merger.

Clinical Services

Individuals and families facing addiction and mental health challenges in our communities need our help now more than ever. COPE provides quality behavioral health-care services to the greater Montclair community that are affordable and responsive to individual, family, and community needs. COPE counselors work directly with families in crisis, mainly in the areas of alcohol and drug abuse. Currently, COPE offers both telehealth and hybrid services – please call the Access Center for specific program information.

The program is designed to provide adolescents with the support, skills and knowledge necessary to successfully stop using drugs and alcohol, as well as remain drug and alcohol free. Individual treatment planning allows our clinical team to address adolescents’ co-occurring and mental health disorders. Some common challenges our adolescents face are symptoms of depression, anxiety, behavioral problems, family conflict, school issues and legal involvement.

Support Groups include:

  • Choices and Consequences Group
  • Substance Abuse Groups
  • Gender Specific & Seeking Safety Group
  • Adolescent Anger Management

COPE offers substance abuse/addiction, mental health and psychiatric outpatient treatment services. We believe in a holistic client-centered approach to treatment which we offer in an environment that is emotionally, psychologically, and physically safe for our clients.

The Co-Occurring Program is designed to provide clients with the support, skills and knowledge necessary to abstain from alcohol/drugs and maintain stable mental health. Challenges, such as medication issues, stigma, the need for positive coping skills, the need for support and the risk of relapse face our co-occurring population on a daily basis. These issues are discussed during individual sessions and covered in all groups.

Adolescent Anger Management Program

A series of 10 groups designed to give participants the skills to handle their anger in a more effective way. It is an interactive group that provides psycho-educational information in addition to opportunities for role play and group discussion. Identifying triggers to their anger and how to effectively cope with them is an important focus of the group. This group also assists teens in developing more effective communication skills.

Adult Anger Management Program

COPE Center offers a 13 session, comprehensive, interactive Anger Management Program designed to provide both education and a supportive forum where clients understand, discuss and internalize select concepts in a group therapy environment. Each session lasts for one and one half hours.

This Program is not linear and, as such, does not present as a Session 1 through Session 13 format. Clients referred to the Program are subject to a rotating admission and, subsequently, complete the program in their own time. Though there is a reasonable allowance for missed meetings, completion of the program mandates 13 complete sessions.

Session concepts include:

  • Anger Pay-offs & Consequences
  • Anger Triggers and Cues
  • 10 Commandments of Anger Management
  • Self-talk
  • The Aggression Cycle
  • The A-B-C-D Model of Anger Management
  • The Fear/Anger Connection
  • Assertive vs. Aggressive Behaviors
  • The Conflict Resolution Model
  • The Myths of Ventilation
  • Cognitive Distortions
  • Hot Button Issues
  • Anger and the Family
  • Forgiveness

Community Programs

The needs of adults, families and youth at risk continue to grow, and COPE’s services are vital to the quality of life of our community in the Essex County region.

Building Blocks is a program for pre-school students and their families. These 6 week programs provide families with young children with opportunities to strengthen and enhance a child’s basic social-emotional skills such as listening, following directions, waiting, emotional regulation, and empathy. To aid parents’ ability to model these skills for their children, a professional facilitator guides parents as they explore these and other topics, sharing parenting challenges and possible solutions. Each Building Blocks series consists of 6 meetings; currently there are four separate series: Basic Building Blocks in English and in Spanish, Advanced Building Blocks, and Kindergarten-Readiness Building Blocks.

EMPOWER, a program for pre-teens and teens, is currently offered only in West Orange. Separate EMPOWER Clubs for boys and girls promote social change by teaching skills that will help youth thrive as they mature. The clubs offer a safe, structured space in which participants explore topics like body image, friendship, stress management, and healthy relationships, while encouraging solidarity and responsibility. A primary goal is for the boys and girls to develop healthy relationships with their peers (seeing them as allies rather than rivals) as well as with adults, while improving self-esteem, problem solving skills and critical thinking.

We offer a variety of free parent workshops in two locations (Montclair and West Orange) throughout the school year. The goal of these workshops is to strengthen family resiliency and communication; topics include Communications and Boundaries, Active Listening, Positive Parenting and Parenting as a Team. Our belief is that strong families are fundamental to a child’s development into a resilient and independent adult as well as the foundation of strong and healthy communities. Substance-abuse prevention curricula that have modified and enhanced to be timely and relevant are interwoven into the workshop material. For more select “workshops” on the spenj.org website menu.

Supporting Parents of Essex County, NJ (SPENJ)

Many parents are unable to attend our scheduled workshops; parents struggle to find the information, services and support for their families that they need. COPE’s website for parents, Supporting Parents of Essex County, NJ (SPENJ) was developed to meet these needs. Material from the workshops is available here, together with our original articles on these and other critical parenting topics. In addition, the site contains an extensive resource directory of local no-to-low-fee services and providers, related websites of interest to parents, as well as an extensive directory of crisis hotlines.

Locations

104 Bloomfield Avenue
Montclair, NJ 07042
973-783-6655

COPE Center at St. Luke’s
73 S. Fullerton Avenue
Montclair, NJ 07042
973-783-6655

Admissions

Please call our Access Center at 1-800-963-3377 to learn more or schedule an appointment.

To learn more, call our Access Center at 1-800-963-3377.

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