Klingberg Family Centers has been the fortunate recipient of several OPM NGP grants which have greatly leveraged scarce capital resources and provided needed capital repairs.  Klingberg is a nonprofit social service agency headquartered in New Britain which provides behavioral health, education, and child protective services for many children and families in central Connecticut.

In round 1, Klingberg received OPM funding to help purchase a total of four new program vans for its therapeutic group homes.  One of these vans, a handicapped accessible van, is used for transporting of handicapped clients of Klingberg’s Webster House medically fragile group home.  The other three vans replace old, high mileage vehicles which were costly to operate and maintain. 

Also in round one, Klingberg received an OPM NGP grant to help restore, clean, and seal the aging brickwork around it’s circa 1922 main building on its New Britain campus.  Many spots around this building were in need of major brickwork restoration as represented by the following before and after pictures.  Several Klingberg programs are housed in this building and restoration work was critically needed to save the exterior of the building from further brick damage.

Klingberg Brickwork Restoration Project Sample- Before Restoration.

Klingberg Brickwork Restoration Project Sample- After Restoration

A final Round 1 OPM NGP project enabled Klingberg to replace an aging, ineffective Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software system with a new EMR.  Through a comprehensive bidding process, Credible Behavioral Healthcare Software was chosen over two other qualified EMR vendors.  Then, over the next 9 months, a Klingberg implementation team worked closely with Credible staff to implement this EMR software to nearly all of Klingberg’s programs.  Klingberg went “live” with its new Credible EMR in November of 2015 which enabled the collection and management of program clinical, demographic, and billing data for most of Klingberg’s programs.  The acquisition cost for the Credible software was largely funded through this OPM NGP grant.

In OPM NGP Round 3, Klingberg was fortunate to receive funding for major renovations of its main building on its New Britain campus (mentioned above).  Specifically, funding was received for a new roof of this 35,000 square foot building which will also allow the installation of rooftop solar panels which will save energy costs for over a 20 year lifespan.  Additionally, a new heating system was approved that will replace the antiquated steam heat system with modern boilers and baseboard water heat.  The roof project and the heating project are nearing the bid stage and should be completed later in 2017.  A third component of this project, a new 60 KW Generator, was installed in the spring of 2017 and supplies emergency power to the main building and allows the IT server infrastructure and the VOIP telephone system to remain operational in power outages.  A picture of this new diesel-powered Generator as installed is below:

In Round 4, Klingberg was fortunate to secure a grant to enhance security at its New Britain campus.  In light of ongoing security challenges at this location, Klingberg will be able to a) install additional fob readers to its external campus doors, b) install a security alarm system in two main buildings, and c) install new exterior surveillance cameras at strategic locations on campus.  This project is scheduled for completion in late spring of 2017 and will strengthen the security posture throughout the New Britain campus.

Through the funding of OPM NGP projects, Klingberg can attest to the effectiveness of this program to organizations like Klingberg whose capital budgets would not otherwise afford the significant capital renovations and software/vehicle purchases made possible through the OPM NGP program.  Klingberg looks forward to a continued partnership with OPM as it leverages scarce capital funding in this challenging budget environment.