Christine Casiano
Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Christine Casiano joined Outreach in 1992 as a grant researcher working on a NIDA project, and over the next three decades, has grown within the ranks of the agency to her current position. She now oversees all the agency’s treatment programs on Long Island and New York City.
Ms. Casiano has amassed expertise across numerous disciplines while at Outreach, including human resources and administrative management, fundraising and grant writing, as well as quality assurance and improvement. She is recognized internally for her problem-solving acumen and ability to bring together individuals from varying disciplines to develop programming that brings the greatest benefit to clients and personnel.
Christine Casiano helped develop Outreach’s Human Resources Department, from the basics of how it functions to how it is managed today. Her efforts brought organization and structure to the department while providing pathways of communication for managers and staff. Afterward, she shifted focus to Outreach Training Institute (OTI) for which she had already developed a familiarity through the numerous grants she helped secure over the years. One of the grants – the Department of Health’s retraining grant – helped kickstart the growth of the OTI into what it is today.
Ms. Casiano is also credited for her leadership in bringing together several departments to implement the agency’s Electronic Health Records (EHR) system, and now oversees the Quality and Data Analytics department, responsible for the agency’s EHR and total quality management system. She led the effort for Outreach to assume management and sponsorship of the adult community residence and outpatient program situated on the grounds of the Pilgrim Psychiatric Center. Now known as Outreach Recovery Center, oversight of these programs at Pilgrim is also part of her scope of responsibility. She also initiated and managed the successful transition of the REACT Center, an ambulatory substance use treatment program in Nassau County, into Outreach’s REACT Center.
Ms. Casiano works in partnership with the agency’s Medical Director to ensure all medical and health-related services throughout all its programs and facilities meet with organizational and external standards. She manages staffing and programmatic changes for the creation and ongoing expansion of a Medicated Assisted Treatment (MAT) Hub designed to improve the agency’s ability to provide expanded access to a full array of MAT to include Methadone. She oversees activities related to projects involving the IPA that Outreach is a member of, including but not limited to evaluation, quality and data analytics optimization, regional State Opioid Response (SOR) grants, and the agency’s first VBP arrangement. She reports on programmatic operations to Outreach’s Board of Directors, ensuring transparency around services provided, outcomes, incident management and other operational challenges.
Christine Casiano has continued to successfully lead the agency program operations throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, providing onsite leadership, managing shifting protocols and requirements, making fast paced critical decisions to help ensure the safety of clients and staff while providing critically needed services.
Ms. Casiano is a partner in Molloy College’s Energeia Partnership, a consortium of leaders who are interested in working toward a better Long Island. Approved by the Suffolk County Legislature, she serves as a member of Suffolk County Division of Community Mental Hygiene Community Service Board. She also is a member of the Suffolk County Division of Community Mental Hygiene Executive Directors, ASAP’s Regulatory Review Committee, and, Coalition for Behavioral Health Children’s Committee. She has a Master of Arts in Sociology from St. John’s University.