ICAN grows with unique mix of services and offerings

UTICA — From the Utica Children’s Museum to expanding its geographic footprint, ICAN — short for Integrated Community Alternatives Network — has been busy bringing its brand of resources to the Mohawk Valley and beyond.

“It’s exciting stuff,” ICAN CEO and Executive Director Steven Bulger says of the growth at his organization. ICAN is a home and community-based network that offers services to individuals and families facing social, emotional, mental health, and behavioral challenges through its staff of 310 and a network of nearly 300 providers. The organization serves more than 2,100 individuals and families daily. “Family is the fabric of the community,” Bulger says, and ICAN focuses on keeping that family strong and together. In recent years, the ways ICAN approaches that goal have expanded beyond the more traditional counseling and support services. The Utica Children’s Museum is one example of that. ICAN began offering managed services to the museum in 2017 before eventually becoming the only member of the museum’s 501(3)(c) nonprofit and bringing the museum into the ICAN family. After a hard look at the museum’s operations and several years of planning and construction, ICAN is set to reopen the Utica Children’s Museum, which closed at its former downtown location at the start of the pandemic. The new museum will open this coming December inside the new ICAN Family Resource Center on the Memorial Parkway in Utica. Features include a 4,000-square-foot rotunda and 10,000 square feet on the second floor, showcasing six galleries and 60 custom-fabricated exhibits. While visitors — and ICAN is hoping for up to 40,000 annually — are enjoying the various exhibits and displays, they will also be surrounded by all the resources ICAN has to offer, and that’s important, Bulger says. “It’s all about reducing barriers to help and reducing the stigma of asking for help,” he says. ICAN’s Family Resource Center houses the organization’s family-based programs, making it easy for museum visitors to access those programs. It’s like the approach ICAN takes at its Elevate CNY Sports Complex in Whitesboro. ICAN purchased the former Rising Stars Sports Complex, a 60,000-square-foot facility, and began operating it in November 2022. “What does a sports complex have to do with keeping families together?” Bulger asks. It turns out that it’s a lot when they infuse the “ICAN way” into it. That can include offerings beyond sports such as leadership academies and training programs, non-traditional programming for youth, creating opportunities for underserved groups to have access, and simply acting as an ICAN outreach center making people aware of services and how to get them. Of course, sports remain a vital activity, and business is booming there, Bulger says. “Kids are using it more than ever before.” The complex hosts a variety of sports teams, is available for party rentals, and also services as a field-trip destination for area schools. Speaking of area schools, ICAN has been busy there as well, Bulger says. “One of our biggest areas of expansion is with schools and pushing into schools,” he says. In a school, ICAN serves as a safety net and helps take some of the pressure off school staff and teachers. For this past school year, ICAN had staff in every school in the Utica City School District — and had to hire 40 new employees to achieve that goal, Bulger says. ICAN is starting to work with more area school districts. The organization is also pushing east and west. In April, it opened a new office in Amsterdam. In the Syracuse area, ICAN is forging a new partnership with the Jon Diaz Community Center to operate a new center in Nedrow. “We have a vision to continue to grow, to continue to expand,” Bulger says. Founded in 1997, ICAN is headquartered at 310 Main St. in Utica and operates 20 programs in six counties.