The Providers’ Council is turning 50 in 2025! In celebration of this milestone, the Council will be running a series of Throwback Thursday posts throughout the year commemorating some of the Council’s most important milestones in its first 50 years.
In the 1970s, the deinstitutionalization movement pushed for vulnerable individuals to be included in society, with social workers and professional caregivers fighting for the rights of all individuals to be able to live in a community of their choosing in the least restrictive settings possible. For example, instead of orphanages, alternatives such as adoption and foster homes were considered for children.
The movement launched several nonprofit organizations providing services to individuals in the communities where they lived. These newly formed community-based human services needed to work together to ensure fair funding and legislation that both promoted and protected the rights and dignity of the populations they served. In the mid-1970’s, a core group of members founded the Providers’ Council to represent their best interests and provide an exchange of communications, ideas and best practices.
Then known as the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers, Inc., the organization’s chief goal was to advocate for the community-based human services sector.
The original mission of the Council – to provide a space for human services organizations to come together and share information and advocate for their program participants – is still at the core of its mission. In 2025, the Council is the largest human services trade association and is widely recognized as the official voice of the private provider industry, encompassing over 220 members across the state of Massachusetts. As the Council enters the next chapter in its history, it will continue to honor its original mission as it looks to build the strongest human services sector in the United States.
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