Mental health board serves two counties - Sandusky Register

The Mental Health and Recovery Board of Erie and Ottawa Counties (MHRBEO) is a local government agency consisting of 18 board members and five employees charged with planning, developing, funding, managing and evaluating a range of mental health and substance use disorder services and programs. Our statutory requirements are outlined in O.R.C. 340. The Board uses local levy, state and federal dollars to contract with community agencies and other professionals to ensure that counseling and support services, trained professionals and evidence-based programs are in place and accessible. The contracts are secured after a program and budget proposal is reviewed by board staff and presented to the board.

Currently, we support over 200 services that address prevention, intervention and treatment of mental health and substance use disorder services throughout the two counties. In FY 2018, 27,000 individuals benefitted from programs and services. Providers such as the Sandusky Artisans Recovery Community Center, Erie County Detox Center, Firelands Counseling and Recovery Services and Bayshore Counseling Services, are provided funds to serve the citizens of our communities.

People living with mental illness and substance use disorders require chronic disease management as well as short-term and longer-term recovery supports that allow each person to live their best, healthy life. Through the strategic planning process, the board recently set the priorities for serving these individuals. The Fiscal Year 2019-2020 strategic plan is posted on our website at www.mhrbeo.org. It was created with extensive input from community members, including consumers and loved ones.

The Mental Health and Recovery Board continues to take a leadership role in combating the addiction crisis. We provide funding for individual and group counseling, Intensive Outpatient Programming (IOP) which consists of nine hours per week of recovery services, Partial Hospitalization Programming (PHP), which consists of up to 30 hours of recovery services, detoxification, residential treatment, recovery housing, peer recovery services, consumer operated services and medication assisted treatment. New to the area is recovery housing for women located in Ottawa County. Currently, we are collaborating with the Erie County Common Pleas and Juvenile Court judges to establish the Erie County Recovery Court and the Family Dependency Recovery Court. In addition, area providers are looking at property in Erie County to establish recovery housing programs for men, and the Board just approved funding for Drug Free Communities for students at EHOVE Career Center.

Equally as important are those in need of mental health services. In 2018, our crisis hotline received more than 13,000 calls, with over 11,000 relevant to mental health issues. On any given day, nine individuals from Erie or Ottawa County are patients at the Northwest Ohio Psychiatric Hospital and 34 beds are occupied on the psychiatric unit at Firelands Hospital. Seventy-five percent of inmates in county jails are afflicted with mental illness. In Erie and Ottawa Counties, there is a total 67 beds located in group homes and independent living sites identified for those with mental illness. This does not include nursing homes, metro housing or the homeless shelter where some individuals reside. Mental health issues are also impacting our communities’ children. School administrators describe their need for more services for young people with mental illness and over 100 adolescents were admitted to inpatient psychiatric care in 2018.

The MHRBEO supports individual and group counseling, residential care, independent living, consumer operated services, guardianship services and psychiatric hospitalization, to name a few. In addition, Assisted Outpatient Treatment, a judicial model for minimizing incarcerations and psychiatric hospitalizations, is now operational in Ottawa County. Soon, additional regional beds will be available for youth in crisis, and the board is also in discussions with school officials to determine a fair and balanced approach to providing additional resources to the students. In the next 30 days, Ottawa County stakeholders will participate with the board in an evidence-based, intensive exercise to identify gaps and determine priorities for mental health services in Ottawa County.

Unfortunately, everyone in our community has been impacted on some level by addiction and mental health issues. What is important is that we rally around each other. We urge the community to support each other, our neighbors, families, coworkers, peers, teachers, students, social workers, therapists, sheriff deputies, police officers, emergency medical services and people who struggle with their jobs and their home life because of the trauma that is all around us. We invite feedback from members of the community and welcome those interested to join the MHRBEO at our board meetings held the third Tuesday of every month. The location of the meetings may be found on our website www.mhrbeo.org.

If you or someone you know is suffering, call the Hotline at 1-800-826-1306 or anonymously text 4Hope to 741741 to get connected immediately any day, any time.

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