New grant focuses on county mental health
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced the award of $90 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds aimed at strengthening mental-health and addiction crisis services statewide.
A total of 37 regional projects will receive funding through the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (MHAS).
“Across Ohio, people of all ages and their families are seeking care in record numbers for substance use and mental-health concerns,” said Governor DeWine. “I am proud of the work we are doing in Ohio to make services more visible, accessible and effective for all Ohioans faced with mental-health and substance-use crises. By expanding access to a full array of crisis services, more Ohioans of all ages will receive the care they need in their local community so that they can recover and reach their full potential.”
Ohio MHAS will oversee coordination of the grants in collaboration with county Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health (ADAMH) Boards. As a part of the planning process, boards were required to work with community partners (service providers, law enforcement, hospitals) to identify local needs and gaps in their regional crisis systems and to develop collaborative projects to add capacity statewide. The resulting awards will fund a mix of capital-improvement projects (26 projects, $74.5M) and infrastructure projects (11 projects, $15.5M), closing locally identified gaps in care, such as short-term residential beds, behavioral-health urgent care, mobile crisis-response teams, and facility/IT improvements.
The Mental Health and Recovery Board for Belmont, Harrison, and Monroe counties will be the recipient of two parts of that $90 million. They will be getting both a $4.1 million grant and a $2.1 million grant.
Executive Director Lisa Ward shared with the News-Herald what that money will be used for. “What we’re looking to do with those awards is partner with a provider in our community and develop for (our counties) a fulfilled crisis continuum. A four-bed crisis stabalization unit and our mobile BH urgent care are services we need,” she said.
The money should cover the entire cost of building a brand new facility. There isn’t a location yet but the board is looking for one that will ideally be centralized between the three counties. She said they want to build a single building between both grants in order to create integrated care where people can walk into one place to have their needs met.
The grants will cover most of the capital for the projects and while the projects are in the works, the board will continue looking for long-term operational funding.
“Because of these investments, more Ohioans and their families will have a better response to their behavioral-health crisis needs than ever before,” said OhioMHAS Director Lori Criss. “With these projects, Ohio is taking a leap forward to reverse decades of neglect for Ohio’s behavioral health crisis care system, ultimately creating a more hopeful future for people experiencing a behavioral health crisis.”
Strengthening crisis services at the community level is an ongoing priority for the department.
