November 5, 2024 • 38 mins
On the next episode of Keeping Ashland Health, the Boss summarizes the Board’s recent Annual Luncheon. A focus on the Board’s yearly outcomes, key takeaways from the keynote speaker (Judge DeSanto-Kellogg), and award recipients are noted. Additional information about the luncheon and the Annual Report can be found at the Board’s website: www.ashlandmhrb.org
(Record Date: October 25, 2024)
(Record Date: October 25, 2024)
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome. You're listening to the Keeping Ashland Healthy Podcast, a
podcast production of the Mental Health and Recovery Board of
Ashland County, Ohio. Thanks for joining us, and thanks again
for joining us. Of another episode of the Keeping Ashland
Healthy podcast. This is Executive Director of the Mental Health
and Recovery Board David Ross, and I am doing the
episode solo no Doctor Ashley today. She's taking a break,
(00:27):
you know, and I think it's because we had our
big Mental Health and Recovery Board annual luncheon just a
couple of days ago on October twenty third. Recording this
episode on the twenty fifth while it's still fresh in
my mind because as the Doctor Ashley will tell you,
I'm getting older. The memory is not what it used
(00:47):
to be. So I wanted to get this on tape
while it's still fresh. So I know we had several
folks that could not attend to luncheon and wanted a recap,
and that's my hope with today episode, just to go
over some of the major things discussed at the board's
annual luncheon for those who missed it. And again, the
(01:09):
Mental Health and Recovery Board, made up of twelve volunteer
members here in Ashland County community. In fact, if you're
interested in some of our board members, we did individual
Keeping an Ashland Healthy podcast episodes on each one of them,
and please look through our episode summaries and go through
the list of all those past episodes and you can
(01:30):
listen to any of those. But if you're interested in
the board members a little bit more in depth as
we get to know them, you can do that. But
eight of the board members are appointed by our local
county commissioners and the other four by the Ohio Department
of Mental Health and Addiction Services. And again the main
criteria is that they're all Ashland County residents and that
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they've got some tie to mental health and or substance
use services, whether as somebody who's received services, maybe a
son or daughter relative is received services, or they're actually
a practitioner themselves of mental health or substanceute services. So
there's this tie in to the work, and they help
us represent the county's needs, and how we go about
(02:17):
meeting those needs is through that board process and speaking
a process. One of the things I discussed with the
attendees in our program catalog was some of the changes
that were made in fiscal year twenty twenty four, and
that was the primary year under scrutiny during the luncheon
(02:39):
and fiscal year twenty four we did some major things right.
At the beginning of the year in terms of board structure,
there was an opportunity to reduce the size of the
board from eighteen members down to a lower number. The
board shows twelve, and that was important because it was
becoming increasingly challenging to fill all eighteen spots. I think
(03:02):
the concept of having boards of directors, whether it's for
for profits or not for profits or governmental entities, it's
been around a long time. There's a tradition of that. However,
it is getting harder and harder, if I'm being honest,
to find individuals willing to serve on boards. So, you know,
(03:24):
we try to find a number that made sense looking
at our history and how many folks we've been able
to historically attract to participate in the board. So the
commissioners agreed with us and we were able to switch
that number to twelve, and we still feel like we
can represent the county efficiently and effectively that way, and
(03:45):
also that will allow us not to have so many
open slots on the board. One of the other things
I covered in the year and review reflections from my perspective,
had to do with a number of meetings. That's another
structural issue. The board made the decision to combine some
of the planning and the fiscal together within our full
(04:07):
board meeting, so we have a much more efficient compact structure.
When it comes to our meetings, the Board continues to
meet monthly for the most part. We take one month
off in the summer and another over the holiday season,
but we continue to meet monthly and discuss the important
work of the board and make decisions going forward on
(04:29):
the needs contracting working with our local partners and including
our contract partners Appleseed, Catholic Charities and a CADA. The
other thing I mentioned was events and training. During the
fiscal year twenty four, we really had a robust year
of trainings. The board has three signature events. Those are
(04:50):
the luncheon, but also our SVP that stands for Respect, Success,
Value and Purpose, our SVP Conference, and then our annuals Side,
Prevention and Awareness Walk. All of those were very successful
in fiscal year twenty four and we're looking forward to
good things in fiscal year twenty five. Another thing I
(05:13):
mentioned in Just Big Picture was the funding situation. Maybe
not the most exciting thing folks want to hear about,
but it is important to note that Ohio state funding
has been flat for many, many years, and this is
specifically the state funds, what we call the four to
twenty one allocation that comes to boards on a regular basis,
(05:34):
has been very flat for many years, going on fifteen
years now, and that is increasingly causing challenges to programming.
You might understand this personally that the price of everything
has gone up, you know, wages and salaries and benefits
and bacon, all of those things have gone up, and
it's been challenging to keep the high quality programs and
(05:57):
services with essentially flat funding for the last fifteen years.
So I explained to the audience there really does need
to be more advocacy with the state to see if
we can't do better in increasing the amount of funds
that are allocated to mental health and recovery boards like
the ones around the state and in Ashley County. So
(06:22):
after some brief comments there, you know, really the program
spent a little time everybody enjoying their lunch and while
they were doing that. We had Becca Smith, who is
a music therapist with U H. Samaritan, and Becca was
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doing a great job on the piano and she was
playing eighties tunes for me, which, as doctor Ashley will
tell you, is one of my favorite genres is the
eighties hairband. So Becca was kind enough to transpose those
eighties hairbands into some tunes on the piano and that
(07:02):
kept the mood I think very light and fun, and
I think folks like that. This first time we had
done live music, so I'm hopeful that we can bring
that back in the future. And special shout out to
Becha Smith. You know, music and art therapy is something
the Board is spending more time emphasizing and focus and
(07:22):
focusing on. We think there's are very effective methodologies for
some folks that are struggling with substance use or emotional
mental health issues. They can express themselves that way, perhaps
much easier than just strictly talk therapy or the verbal medium.
So we broke for lunch and folks from UA University
(07:48):
of Ashland Catering did a wonderful job with the meal
and I think everybody had enough to eat. Of course,
the boss did not eat since I was doing a
lot of the talk, and so I did miss out
a little bit on that. After lunch, then we moved
right into some brief updates that I made about some
of the board's outcomes from fiscal year twenty four. I
(08:14):
thought it was important that the audience and you all know,
you know just how we did in some of our
key programming areas. So we talked about our twenty four
to seven crisis service, which I'm very very passionate about.
The Board funds a twenty four to seven crisis helpline warmline.
We do that through APPLESE Community Mental Health Agency, and
(08:36):
the twenty four to seven line is a literally a
lifeline for individuals that needed We talked about in twenty
twenty four, sixteen hundred and eighty three calls that were made,
sixty six percent of those calls addressed what we would
call emergent or crisis or de escalation needs. So these
(08:58):
are very severe suations where the person on the other end,
either themselves or helping somebody else, needed that professional suggestions, advice,
guidance to help them in that situation, and that sometimes
that could be directing them to a local hospital er.
It could be other services that are necessary just to
(09:20):
sometimes restore normal breathing somebody who's having a difficult time
just taking a normal breath. But then another thirty four
percent of those sixteen hundred and eighty three calls where education, consultation, advocacy,
and referral. And I pointed out to the audience that's
important to know that we want folks to call our
twenty four to seven number even if it's not an
(09:43):
acute crisis situation. And what I mean by that is,
maybe you just don't know where to go, You're frustrated,
you're afraid, you're not sure how to help yourself or
a loved one, and you just need information. You just
want to talk to somebody about what the options are
and through maybe what's going on with you. So that
the four one nine two eight nine sixty one one one,
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that's twenty four to seven number, you can do that.
It doesn't have to be an acute crisis situation. It
can be just just I need more information. I'm worried
about my son, my daughter, my husband, my wife, whomever
it might be. So the twenty four to seven Crisis
Light Crisis Hotline is staffed by local folks apple seed.
(10:26):
These are trained folks. They understand the community, they understand
the resources. I always mentioned that nine to eighty eight
is also available. That's a national call number. And the
main difference and the reason I promote our local over
the national is just that the nine eight eight is
answered by somebody who's not local. It's a regional call
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center based out of another county. Their familiarity with our
resources is not the same as our local numbers. So
nine to eight eight is an option, but I do
prefer our twenty four to seven local number four one
nine two eight nine sixty one one one And next up,
I talked about school communityly late school Community Liaison program.
(11:09):
Easy for me to say the School Community Liaison Program
is a hallmark program of the board. It has been
for over twenty years. So most of the funds for
this program come through the local levee. The Board appreciates
and I can't say that enough. We appreciate the local
levee and the local support we receive from Ashton County residents.
(11:30):
This program is dynamic, it's unique, and it has been.
In fact, I'm not aware of another county that's been
able to stand up a similar program in their county
like we've done all these years, because quite honestly, a
lot of folks don't recognize the long term and short
(11:51):
term impacts of this program and they're just hesitant to
spend so much of their levee because it does take
quite a bit of resources to run a program like this,
because the workers are in all the districts in a school,
districts in the county, and the levy funds allow them
to do their work in such a flexible way that
(12:12):
they're not beholden to particular standards that would be required
of a funder like say Medicaid. So young people don't
need to sign up, they don't parents don't have to
be somehow eligible financially. There is very little red tape
if you will to qualify or to get involved with
(12:34):
the liaison program. It's essentially as simple as if the
young person, their family, the school, folks that are concerned,
they can reach out to the liaison. The liaison can
immediately get to work trying to help. Folks always ask me, David,
what does the what do liaisons do? And quite frankly,
(12:56):
they do whatever is needed in that situation. That's the
absolute magic of the program. It looks different in every
building in the county, in the different districts. They really
take on the needs and the cultures of the districts
they're in the buildings they're in. Stacey Merriweathers, she works
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at Appleseed. She's in charge of the liaison program. She's
also the clinical director there at apple Seed. She's been
the shepherd of that program. And shout out to Stacy.
She's really made sure that that program has remained at
a high quality, effective level for as I said, twenty
plus years. In twenty four fiscal year twenty four, the
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program served over twenty two hundred and fifty unduplicated counts.
So these are twenty two one hundred and fifty students.
Some of them were served more than once throughout the
school year. Over twenty three hundred referrals were made for
all types of things, not just for things like mental
health or substance use health help, but all you know, food, clothing, sheldy,
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you name it. They made twenty three hundred and thirty
four referrals to community agencies with This is one of
those astounding numbers with a ninety two percent follow through
rate and what we mean by that is, when the
liaisons make these referrals, there's a ninety two percent chance
that the referral is followed through on. And that is
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because the liaisons often go with the individuals they're working
with them with that referral. They just don't give them
a number or a name and say here you go.
They walk beside them as they get those helps. So again,
it just makes that program so successful. Additionally, we've seen
and continue to see great success with academic, behavioral issues,
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attendance issues. Those are the three major outcomes we track
that the liaisons help that are school related. Again, over
eighty percent improvements for those young people they're working with
that are struggling with either behaviors, academic issues, and or
attendance issues. Next, I moved on to summarize the drug
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alcohol prevention services that the board funds in our k
through twelve schools and again throughout the entire county, all
the different districts we've got. You might recall an episode
we did back in the summer with the what we
call the prevention Gals. We did that episode and featured
all three of them, and they're in the buildings now.
(15:30):
For we did hire another person because of the need.
It's been so great. But I just summarized the twenty
two hundred and forty one hours of prevention services that
we're done in twenty twenty four, as well as the
over four thousand youth impacted. Next up, we talked about
suicide prevention and awareness efforts in twenty twenty four. I
(15:52):
mentioned the walk earlier, but we also talked about all
the question persuade and refer Question persuade refer is the
board's primary approach to suicide prevention in the county and
it has been now for about seventeen years, and we
did about three hundred and eighty folks trained up is
what we call a gatekeeper in the county, and similar
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to CPR, we've got folks trained that they can notice,
they know what to look for, they know what to
listen for when somebody might be struggling, and they learn
how to ask the question. And that question basically is
are you feeling like taking your own life? Are you
thinking about killing yourself? Are you thinking about suicide? So
there's a couple different ways that we teach folks to
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try to ask that question, but the important thing is
that they do ask that for somebody that they're concerned about.
And we've done those trainings throughout the year, and we
continue to do those in fiscal year twenty five and beyond.
As I say, over three hundred and eighty folks trained
last year. I think we've already surpassed that in fiscal
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year twenty five. But again, the more folks we have
trained up in that model, the more likely we are
to prevent even one suicide in the county, which is
our goal. Next, I highlighted the Pathway's peer support program
that is administered by Catholic Charities Diocese of Cleveland, And
again this is a unique program in a lot of ways.
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The peer support program and peer support generally is on
the rise throughout the state, I think in the country.
So this is an adult peer program, so eighteen and up,
and folks are helped by folks that have been there,
done that. They're now in a spot where they want
to give back. So they had seventy seven new participants
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in fiscal year twenty four, and they do a lot
of group work. Over eight hundred and thirty group sessions
were offered in twenty four with an average attendance of
nine folks and a core group of about thirteen participants.
Every day. They meet at the Professional Building, which is
downtown on Second Street in Church Street. If you're familiar
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with the County Courthouse right across the street from that,
Pathway's peer support program. Get in touch with Catholic Charities
if you're interested in joining that program, and Catholic Charities
is four one nine two eight nine one nine zero three.
And I'll try to drop in some of this information
in our episode description for today's episode as well. Also
(18:27):
I mentioned our services at the jail, and these jail
and community based services are critical. I told the audience
that with the nature of fentanyl and methane fetamine, we've
seen a dramatic decrease in the amount of individuals that
are presenting for treatment substance use mental health treatment generally,
but particularly with substance use treatment on an outpatient basis.
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So the nature of fentanyl and methin fetamine use is
such that they are less inclined to that at an
outpatient agency like say CADA and say hey, I need
help with my fentanyl, Hey I need help with my
methamfetamine use. What's more likely to happen, and it's not
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just in a national county, but what is more likely
to happen is an individual gets in trouble with law
enforcement and ends up at local jail. So, in partnership
with our sheriff and our jail folks, we've got very
robust substance use in mental health services available to anyone there.
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And so we talk about over six hundred and some
hours of alcohol drug services at the jail during fiscal
year twenty twenty four. A lot of that was in
screening and education, a lot of assessments were done. One
hundred and fifty four persons received either individual or individual
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counseling or case management services, and then linkage services are
also offered at our jail and we had two hundred
and twenty seven person's rect that And what that means
is as the person is getting ready to leave exit
the jail, especially if we've identified mental health and or
substance use issues, we want to make sure that there's
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a plan already in place before they leave to get
those follow up services in the community. We want to
prevent any kind of recidivism, which is a fancy word
for coming back to the jail. We don't want that
to happen. We want them to be able to get
out of the jail, get the services they needed while
they're in the jail, continue those when they're out in
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the community. Those can be mental health, drug alcohol services,
but they could be some of those basic services again,
employment and education, housing, shelter, food, clothing, all these basic things.
We want to try to arrange for those services before
they leave the jail. So that's what Jail Community Linkage's
services are all about. And again we were very successful
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in terms of those served and of those serve the
ones that had no new or rest. At one hundred
and ninety out there's two twenty seven had no new arrest.
The other thing I mentioned lastly in my high level
report was the Juvenile Court Liaison. This is an individual
works with eighty seven youth in fiscal year twenty four
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as well as adults, and the primary goal is to
make sure that there's a good interface between our juvenile court,
the probation officers, juvenile probation officers, and community agencies community partners,
whether that's schools, other treating agencies. They also serve to
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help families negotiate some of these services, whether it's with
the court or in the broader community. And I think
the Liaison has been instrumental in improving the relationship between
the Board, community partners, and the juvenile court. You know,
every system has their own language, if you will, and
having somebody that can stand between the various systems to
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help family and the individuals young people, we've seen a
benefit over the year. So appreciative of all the youth
and that family's impacted positively by the Liaison program. Last,
but not least, I just highlighted some of the fiscal
receipts and expenditures from the board. I indicated to members
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that there's a little over four point seven million dollars
in terms of a board budget, not a big budget actually,
and I did point out that the board, actually our
budget was a deficit budget for fiscal year twenty five.
And all that means is that we allocated about thirty
thousand dollars more than we anticipated bringing in in revenues.
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And that goes back to what I said some minutes
ago about the flat funding. We're trying to maintain all
the high quality services and also pay the folks that
provide those services a living wage, and we're trying to
be competitive with some of the surrounding counties so we
don't lose quality people to some of these bigger counties.
And that resulted, unfortunately in a little bit of a deficit,
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which we were able to make up with some carryover
funds from the previous year. But all that to say,
it's important I think that the community knows that the
board is allocating the money that comes into it. The
board is not a bank, as my old boss used
to say. It is our job to allocate the funds
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that come in to those quality services that meet the
needs of the Ashton County residents and that's what the
Board is doing. Next up on the busy agenda was
our keynote in this year. It was Judge Karen DeSanto Kellogg.
DiSanto Kellogg was voted into office back in twenty twenty
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and she serves as our Juvenile Court as well as
Probate Court judge. And I had the pleasure of introducing
the judge and she had been an attorney in private
practice here in Ashland County and other counties focused on
family matters primarily. She's also served on various boards and
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committees in the county, including Napleseed and advocates for families,
the old parenting plus you know they updated their name
if you didn't know that. And Judge Kellogg, on a
personal note, has been married to Brian who's an attorney
for twenty one years and they have five children. And
the judge talked about that a little bit in her talk,
which you know, I cannot do justice to her talk,
(24:38):
but I will just say that the highlights for me
had to do with the emphasis on the responsibility of
a community to help our young people, to help the
next generation. All of us have a responsibility to be parents,
if you will. Obviously the biological parents have a different responsibility,
(25:00):
maybe family and friends in the broader community, but we
all have a responsibility to help our young people be
the best, most successful adults that they can be. So
the judge really challenged us because she sees the young
people that maybe they there's not been enough support, there's
not been enough rallying, either by the biological parents or
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the extended family or the community, and these young people
are struggling. So the judge really challenged the audience to
help to come alongside if you're a parent, being a
better parent, if your family and friends is coming alongside
the biological parents. If you're in the community, be that
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positive person. One of the things that we often talk
about is adverse childhood experiences in Ashland County ACES. That's
some impactful, very important research that was done some years
ago that says adverse childhood experiences can very much get
in the way of young people being successful and it
can lead to all kinds of negative outcomes throughout the
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lifespan if they're not mitigated. And they can be mitigated
in a variety of different ways. And what I mean
by that is various things. Even in spite of at
first childhood experiences, if there are other things going on,
they can help lessen the impact of those negative events.
And one of the primary things people don't always think
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about this, one of the primary things that mitigates against
adverse childhood experiences being as detrimental and long lasting are
positive adults, consistent, caring, loving, dependable adults that are in
the life of these young people. And again this is
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why I think the Judges message was so powerful. All
of us can be that to a young person, a teacher,
a coach, somebody at church, a neighbor. There are opportunities
for all of us to be that positive, caring, loving, supporting, dependable,
reliable adult to a young person. So I think the
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Judge's message was right on target to the extent. We
have strong families, we have strong young people, we have
a strong up and coming generation. We're going to have
a thriving, robust community. So shout out to Judge to
Santa Okay. Log I really thought her keynote this year
was right on point and she did a wonderful job
(27:31):
in delivering it. From there, the home stress of the
luncheon had to do with two awards that we give out.
The first is the Beacon Award and the second is
the Community Partnership Award. In this year's Beacon Award went
to a long time counselor almost forty years in our community.
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This counselor has been serving primarily the substance use disorder
population at CADA. Her name is Mary Joe jan Car
Mary Joe independently licensed counselor and social worker. In that
forty years, it's roughly she's seen almost eight thousand folks
over that time. Sometimes she's seen the person at various
stages of their life. I mentioned in the presentation of
(28:19):
the Beacon Award that it's not uncommon at all for
individuals that are struggling with substance use to have multiple
periods where they go through they're successful, then they're not successful,
maybe they have a relapse or a slip, they drop out,
and then they come back into treatment. And Mary Joe like,
I think all the counselors at a Kaida understand that
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they explain that and they let the person know if
that does happen that they're welcome to return. There is
no shame, there is no judgment if they come back
to services three, four or five times, whatever it takes.
We want the individuals to be successful in their recovery,
and we know it usually just doesn't happen the first time. Oftentimes,
when I speak two groups, I asked them about weight
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loss and dieting, if they've ever done that in their life,
or quitting smoking, think about you know, there's a there's
a small percentage of individuals that wake up and say
I'm going to do this, and then they do it.
And that's that more often than not, it takes multiple
times before we're successful in achieving our goals. No different
than some of this substance use disorder, folks that they're
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they're struggling, they don't success succeed as well as they
want the first time or the second time. So Mary
Joe is oftentimes seeing people many times throughout their lifetime
until they get it right, until they get to the
point where they feel like they finally are in recovery
and are being able to maintain that recovery. We did
(29:44):
have a little fun at Mary Joe's expense talking about
some of her flamboyant dress styles, and I think some
of the insiders I had it at a CADA shared some
stories that I thought brought some color into life into
Mary Joe for the audience members. She just sometimes has
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a way of saying things that brings a lot of
joy and laughter to the office. One of the things
that I learned as I was getting this information together
is just how much everybody enjoys working with Mary Joe
over the years, even though some of the work that
she has to do when doing some of these difficult
assessments with folks that have a history of substance use,
it's that's that's hard to be honest with somebody, be respectful,
(30:29):
but also be blunt. Sometimes when you need to be blunt.
Oftentimes when folks are struggling with substance use disorder, they
don't want to be honest about their own use and
some of the side of not side effects, but the effects,
if you will, of that use. So Mary Joe had
a way of doing that, being gentle but firm with
folks when when she needed to be that way. So
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you know, the Martha Jordan's Beacon Ward was actually established
some years ago to honor Martha Phillips Jordan, or her legacy.
Martha was kind of the county's counselor if you will.
She used to write columns in the Times Gazette back
in the day. She worked with many folks in private
practice and other capacities over the years, and she really
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had a love for this county and for the people
in it. So the award was established by the board
to just honor her recognize other outstanding leaders in our
community who reflect her work of supporting and caring for
our fellow citizens who struggle with mental health and substitute
issues by just helping them lead whole in independent lives.
(31:35):
So we are proud to give the award, the Martha
Jordan Beacon Award for twenty twenty four to marry Joe
jenkar So, congratulations Mary Joe. And last but not least,
we had an award this year, first time we did
this award, but it was important to the Board that
(31:57):
we recognize our partners and the Board cannot do its
work effectively without partnerships, whether that's our contract partnerships with
a Cada Appleseed or Catholic charities, but also our community partnerships.
And for the twenty twenty four Community Partnership Award, we
focused on the work in the partnership over the twenty
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plus years of Sheriff Wayne E. Reisner. So the Community
Partnership Award recognizes outstanding organizations or individuals who have demonstrated
exemplary leadership in the community by working together with all
sectors public, private, governmental to ensure individuals and families with
mental health substance use concerns receive the vital care they
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need to live productive lives. Effective partnerships are a cornerstone
of strong communities. And as I was preparing to present
the ward to the Sheriff, I had come across a
quote that's attributed to Einstein that says, quote in the
middle of every difficulty lies opportunity. The reason I thought
that was fitting as I think about the individuals in
(33:04):
our local jail, that is a difficult situation for a
lot of them, I would say most of them. But
in the middle of that difficulty, I think there is opportunity,
and that opportunity has really been made apparent to them
through the work of the sheriff because he's been so
open and encouraging and supportive of mental health and substance
(33:29):
use services at the jail. And we really wanted to
as a board recognize all those years of support that
we've had that is not given. Not all sheriffs welcome
the kind of robust services in their jail that our
sheriff does. We wanted to recognize that. We wanted to
recognize as ongoing advocacy for not only those services to
(33:52):
the folks the inmates there, but also his staff. We
do a lot of ongoing staff training and mental health
and substance use issues. They don't get a lot of that.
The officers don't get that in the academy as they're
coming up. So the sheriff believes strongly in training and
education for his officers and even self care when there
(34:14):
was a spike in suicides and overdose deaths in the
county in twenty twenty three. The sheriff reached out to
myself and Jerry Strasball, the executive director of Appleseed. He said, listen,
we need to do something to take care of our guys.
They have been exposed to a lot of these scenes,
these deaths, and you know it's had an impact on them.
(34:36):
So what can we do to help them? What tools
and abilities and skills information can we provide to them
to help them as they're dealing with all these losses.
So we did that in twenty twenty three, and we're
just that's just the kind of sheriff he is. He
cares about as folks. He cares about the people that
(34:57):
are at the jail. He cares about the visitors that
come down in all for services. He will not allow
services to be delivered at the jail if they're not
done in a professional quality way. He holds everyone there,
the individuals, the staff, and any visitors to very high
level and we appreciate that about the share of It's
that consistent professionalism, high expectations that makes our jail, I
(35:21):
think one of the best. When other people come to
the county. I let the audience know I hear the
same thing every time people come that haven't been at
Ashen County before. They remark on the robust services. They
just can't believe how many services we have in our
jail and the culture that the sheriff has created. So
one of the things I said to the audience was that,
(35:42):
you know, I can't think of a better testament to
an effective leader. Then when they leave, when they exit
an organization via retirement or any other way, that the culture,
the initiatives, their impact lives on after them after they've left,
So that if someone were to walk into that organization
(36:05):
years after that they've departed, that many of the if
not all, of their initiatives and the culture that they
created lives on after them. I think that just speaks volumes.
And as the sheriff is planning to retire in January
or twenty twenty five, I am confident that the legacy
that he's established will outlive him. It will go on
(36:31):
two years to come. And I have had some preliminary
discussions with the incoming sheriff, kirch Schneider, and I believe
he is onboard and we will have that ongoing partnership
with the new sheriff that we've had with a sheriff,
Wayne E. Reisner, but we will miss him and we
just wanted to honor him with the Community Partnership Award
(36:52):
before he retired in January, so that was it. You know,
we had some picture opportunities. So for those of you
that could not make the luncheon in person, I hope
this gives you some sense of what happened at the lunch.
The full annual report is available at our website www
(37:14):
dot Ashlan MHRB dot org and you can I summarized it,
so there's way more information in it, so we encourage
you to go out to the website and download that. Again,
I'll drop some additional information into the podcast episode from today,
but I hope that you'll join us next year for
(37:34):
the annual luncheon. We do this every year in October,
so be looking for that. But we'll have plenty of
opportunities to invite you to other events and activities and
trainings throughout state fiscal year twenty twenty five. Thanks again,
thank you for listening to another episode of the Keeping
Ashland Healthy podcast. The podcast is a production of the
(37:55):
Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County, Ohio. You
can reach the Board by calling one nine two eight
one three one three nine. Please remember that the Board
funds a local twenty four seven crisis line through Applese
Community Mental Health Center. It can be reached by calling
four one nine two eight nine sixty one one one.
That's four one nine two eight nine six one one one.
(38:18):
Until next time, Please join us in keeping Ashland healthy.
Welcome. You're listening to the Keeping Ashland Healthy Podcast, a
podcast production of the Mental Health and Recovery Board of
Ashland County, Ohio. Thanks for joining us, and thanks again
for joining us. Of another episode of the Keeping Ashland
Healthy podcast. This is Executive Director of the Mental Health
and Recovery Board David Ross, and I am doing the
episode solo no Doctor Ashley today. She's taking a break,
(00:27):
you know, and I think it's because we had our
big Mental Health and Recovery Board annual luncheon just a
couple of days ago on October twenty third. Recording this
episode on the twenty fifth while it's still fresh in
my mind because as the Doctor Ashley will tell you,
I'm getting older. The memory is not what it used
(00:47):
to be. So I wanted to get this on tape
while it's still fresh. So I know we had several
folks that could not attend to luncheon and wanted a recap,
and that's my hope with today episode, just to go
over some of the major things discussed at the board's
annual luncheon for those who missed it. And again, the
(01:09):
Mental Health and Recovery Board, made up of twelve volunteer
members here in Ashland County community. In fact, if you're
interested in some of our board members, we did individual
Keeping an Ashland Healthy podcast episodes on each one of them,
and please look through our episode summaries and go through
the list of all those past episodes and you can
(01:30):
listen to any of those. But if you're interested in
the board members a little bit more in depth as
we get to know them, you can do that. But
eight of the board members are appointed by our local
county commissioners and the other four by the Ohio Department
of Mental Health and Addiction Services. And again the main
criteria is that they're all Ashland County residents and that
(01:53):
they've got some tie to mental health and or substance
use services, whether as somebody who's received services, maybe a
son or daughter relative is received services, or they're actually
a practitioner themselves of mental health or substanceute services. So
there's this tie in to the work, and they help
us represent the county's needs, and how we go about
(02:17):
meeting those needs is through that board process and speaking
a process. One of the things I discussed with the
attendees in our program catalog was some of the changes
that were made in fiscal year twenty twenty four, and
that was the primary year under scrutiny during the luncheon
(02:39):
and fiscal year twenty four we did some major things right.
At the beginning of the year in terms of board structure,
there was an opportunity to reduce the size of the
board from eighteen members down to a lower number. The
board shows twelve, and that was important because it was
becoming increasingly challenging to fill all eighteen spots. I think
(03:02):
the concept of having boards of directors, whether it's for
for profits or not for profits or governmental entities, it's
been around a long time. There's a tradition of that. However,
it is getting harder and harder, if I'm being honest,
to find individuals willing to serve on boards. So, you know,
(03:24):
we try to find a number that made sense looking
at our history and how many folks we've been able
to historically attract to participate in the board. So the
commissioners agreed with us and we were able to switch
that number to twelve, and we still feel like we
can represent the county efficiently and effectively that way, and
(03:45):
also that will allow us not to have so many
open slots on the board. One of the other things
I covered in the year and review reflections from my perspective,
had to do with a number of meetings. That's another
structural issue. The board made the decision to combine some
of the planning and the fiscal together within our full
(04:07):
board meeting, so we have a much more efficient compact structure.
When it comes to our meetings, the Board continues to
meet monthly for the most part. We take one month
off in the summer and another over the holiday season,
but we continue to meet monthly and discuss the important
work of the board and make decisions going forward on
(04:29):
the needs contracting working with our local partners and including
our contract partners Appleseed, Catholic Charities and a CADA. The
other thing I mentioned was events and training. During the
fiscal year twenty four, we really had a robust year
of trainings. The board has three signature events. Those are
(04:50):
the luncheon, but also our SVP that stands for Respect, Success,
Value and Purpose, our SVP Conference, and then our annuals Side,
Prevention and Awareness Walk. All of those were very successful
in fiscal year twenty four and we're looking forward to
good things in fiscal year twenty five. Another thing I
(05:13):
mentioned in Just Big Picture was the funding situation. Maybe
not the most exciting thing folks want to hear about,
but it is important to note that Ohio state funding
has been flat for many, many years, and this is
specifically the state funds, what we call the four to
twenty one allocation that comes to boards on a regular basis,
(05:34):
has been very flat for many years, going on fifteen
years now, and that is increasingly causing challenges to programming.
You might understand this personally that the price of everything
has gone up, you know, wages and salaries and benefits
and bacon, all of those things have gone up, and
it's been challenging to keep the high quality programs and
(05:57):
services with essentially flat funding for the last fifteen years.
So I explained to the audience there really does need
to be more advocacy with the state to see if
we can't do better in increasing the amount of funds
that are allocated to mental health and recovery boards like
the ones around the state and in Ashley County. So
(06:22):
after some brief comments there, you know, really the program
spent a little time everybody enjoying their lunch and while
they were doing that. We had Becca Smith, who is
a music therapist with U H. Samaritan, and Becca was
(06:42):
doing a great job on the piano and she was
playing eighties tunes for me, which, as doctor Ashley will
tell you, is one of my favorite genres is the
eighties hairband. So Becca was kind enough to transpose those
eighties hairbands into some tunes on the piano and that
(07:02):
kept the mood I think very light and fun, and
I think folks like that. This first time we had
done live music, so I'm hopeful that we can bring
that back in the future. And special shout out to
Becha Smith. You know, music and art therapy is something
the Board is spending more time emphasizing and focus and
(07:22):
focusing on. We think there's are very effective methodologies for
some folks that are struggling with substance use or emotional
mental health issues. They can express themselves that way, perhaps
much easier than just strictly talk therapy or the verbal medium.
So we broke for lunch and folks from UA University
(07:48):
of Ashland Catering did a wonderful job with the meal
and I think everybody had enough to eat. Of course,
the boss did not eat since I was doing a
lot of the talk, and so I did miss out
a little bit on that. After lunch, then we moved
right into some brief updates that I made about some
of the board's outcomes from fiscal year twenty four. I
(08:14):
thought it was important that the audience and you all know,
you know just how we did in some of our
key programming areas. So we talked about our twenty four
to seven crisis service, which I'm very very passionate about.
The Board funds a twenty four to seven crisis helpline warmline.
We do that through APPLESE Community Mental Health Agency, and
(08:36):
the twenty four to seven line is a literally a
lifeline for individuals that needed We talked about in twenty
twenty four, sixteen hundred and eighty three calls that were made,
sixty six percent of those calls addressed what we would
call emergent or crisis or de escalation needs. So these
(08:58):
are very severe suations where the person on the other end,
either themselves or helping somebody else, needed that professional suggestions, advice,
guidance to help them in that situation, and that sometimes
that could be directing them to a local hospital er.
It could be other services that are necessary just to
(09:20):
sometimes restore normal breathing somebody who's having a difficult time
just taking a normal breath. But then another thirty four
percent of those sixteen hundred and eighty three calls where education, consultation, advocacy,
and referral. And I pointed out to the audience that's
important to know that we want folks to call our
twenty four to seven number even if it's not an
(09:43):
acute crisis situation. And what I mean by that is,
maybe you just don't know where to go, You're frustrated,
you're afraid, you're not sure how to help yourself or
a loved one, and you just need information. You just
want to talk to somebody about what the options are
and through maybe what's going on with you. So that
the four one nine two eight nine sixty one one one,
(10:04):
that's twenty four to seven number, you can do that.
It doesn't have to be an acute crisis situation. It
can be just just I need more information. I'm worried
about my son, my daughter, my husband, my wife, whomever
it might be. So the twenty four to seven Crisis
Light Crisis Hotline is staffed by local folks apple seed.
(10:26):
These are trained folks. They understand the community, they understand
the resources. I always mentioned that nine to eighty eight
is also available. That's a national call number. And the
main difference and the reason I promote our local over
the national is just that the nine eight eight is
answered by somebody who's not local. It's a regional call
(10:48):
center based out of another county. Their familiarity with our
resources is not the same as our local numbers. So
nine to eight eight is an option, but I do
prefer our twenty four to seven local number four one
nine two eight nine sixty one one one And next up,
I talked about school communityly late school Community Liaison program.
(11:09):
Easy for me to say the School Community Liaison Program
is a hallmark program of the board. It has been
for over twenty years. So most of the funds for
this program come through the local levee. The Board appreciates
and I can't say that enough. We appreciate the local
levee and the local support we receive from Ashton County residents.
(11:30):
This program is dynamic, it's unique, and it has been.
In fact, I'm not aware of another county that's been
able to stand up a similar program in their county
like we've done all these years, because quite honestly, a
lot of folks don't recognize the long term and short
(11:51):
term impacts of this program and they're just hesitant to
spend so much of their levee because it does take
quite a bit of resources to run a program like this,
because the workers are in all the districts in a school,
districts in the county, and the levy funds allow them
to do their work in such a flexible way that
(12:12):
they're not beholden to particular standards that would be required
of a funder like say Medicaid. So young people don't
need to sign up, they don't parents don't have to
be somehow eligible financially. There is very little red tape
if you will to qualify or to get involved with
(12:34):
the liaison program. It's essentially as simple as if the
young person, their family, the school, folks that are concerned,
they can reach out to the liaison. The liaison can
immediately get to work trying to help. Folks always ask me, David,
what does the what do liaisons do? And quite frankly,
(12:56):
they do whatever is needed in that situation. That's the
absolute magic of the program. It looks different in every
building in the county, in the different districts. They really
take on the needs and the cultures of the districts
they're in the buildings they're in. Stacey Merriweathers, she works
(13:16):
at Appleseed. She's in charge of the liaison program. She's
also the clinical director there at apple Seed. She's been
the shepherd of that program. And shout out to Stacy.
She's really made sure that that program has remained at
a high quality, effective level for as I said, twenty
plus years. In twenty four fiscal year twenty four, the
(13:39):
program served over twenty two hundred and fifty unduplicated counts.
So these are twenty two one hundred and fifty students.
Some of them were served more than once throughout the
school year. Over twenty three hundred referrals were made for
all types of things, not just for things like mental
health or substance use health help, but all you know, food, clothing, sheldy,
(14:02):
you name it. They made twenty three hundred and thirty
four referrals to community agencies with This is one of
those astounding numbers with a ninety two percent follow through
rate and what we mean by that is, when the
liaisons make these referrals, there's a ninety two percent chance
that the referral is followed through on. And that is
(14:25):
because the liaisons often go with the individuals they're working
with them with that referral. They just don't give them
a number or a name and say here you go.
They walk beside them as they get those helps. So again,
it just makes that program so successful. Additionally, we've seen
and continue to see great success with academic, behavioral issues,
(14:48):
attendance issues. Those are the three major outcomes we track
that the liaisons help that are school related. Again, over
eighty percent improvements for those young people they're working with
that are struggling with either behaviors, academic issues, and or
attendance issues. Next, I moved on to summarize the drug
(15:10):
alcohol prevention services that the board funds in our k
through twelve schools and again throughout the entire county, all
the different districts we've got. You might recall an episode
we did back in the summer with the what we
call the prevention Gals. We did that episode and featured
all three of them, and they're in the buildings now.
(15:30):
For we did hire another person because of the need.
It's been so great. But I just summarized the twenty
two hundred and forty one hours of prevention services that
we're done in twenty twenty four, as well as the
over four thousand youth impacted. Next up, we talked about
suicide prevention and awareness efforts in twenty twenty four. I
(15:52):
mentioned the walk earlier, but we also talked about all
the question persuade and refer Question persuade refer is the
board's primary approach to suicide prevention in the county and
it has been now for about seventeen years, and we
did about three hundred and eighty folks trained up is
what we call a gatekeeper in the county, and similar
(16:13):
to CPR, we've got folks trained that they can notice,
they know what to look for, they know what to
listen for when somebody might be struggling, and they learn
how to ask the question. And that question basically is
are you feeling like taking your own life? Are you
thinking about killing yourself? Are you thinking about suicide? So
there's a couple different ways that we teach folks to
(16:36):
try to ask that question, but the important thing is
that they do ask that for somebody that they're concerned about.
And we've done those trainings throughout the year, and we
continue to do those in fiscal year twenty five and beyond.
As I say, over three hundred and eighty folks trained
last year. I think we've already surpassed that in fiscal
(16:58):
year twenty five. But again, the more folks we have
trained up in that model, the more likely we are
to prevent even one suicide in the county, which is
our goal. Next, I highlighted the Pathway's peer support program
that is administered by Catholic Charities Diocese of Cleveland, And
again this is a unique program in a lot of ways.
(17:22):
The peer support program and peer support generally is on
the rise throughout the state, I think in the country.
So this is an adult peer program, so eighteen and up,
and folks are helped by folks that have been there,
done that. They're now in a spot where they want
to give back. So they had seventy seven new participants
(17:42):
in fiscal year twenty four, and they do a lot
of group work. Over eight hundred and thirty group sessions
were offered in twenty four with an average attendance of
nine folks and a core group of about thirteen participants.
Every day. They meet at the Professional Building, which is
downtown on Second Street in Church Street. If you're familiar
(18:05):
with the County Courthouse right across the street from that,
Pathway's peer support program. Get in touch with Catholic Charities
if you're interested in joining that program, and Catholic Charities
is four one nine two eight nine one nine zero three.
And I'll try to drop in some of this information
in our episode description for today's episode as well. Also
(18:27):
I mentioned our services at the jail, and these jail
and community based services are critical. I told the audience
that with the nature of fentanyl and methane fetamine, we've
seen a dramatic decrease in the amount of individuals that
are presenting for treatment substance use mental health treatment generally,
but particularly with substance use treatment on an outpatient basis.
(18:51):
So the nature of fentanyl and methin fetamine use is
such that they are less inclined to that at an
outpatient agency like say CADA and say hey, I need
help with my fentanyl, Hey I need help with my
methamfetamine use. What's more likely to happen, and it's not
(19:11):
just in a national county, but what is more likely
to happen is an individual gets in trouble with law
enforcement and ends up at local jail. So, in partnership
with our sheriff and our jail folks, we've got very
robust substance use in mental health services available to anyone there.
(19:31):
And so we talk about over six hundred and some
hours of alcohol drug services at the jail during fiscal
year twenty twenty four. A lot of that was in
screening and education, a lot of assessments were done. One
hundred and fifty four persons received either individual or individual
(19:52):
counseling or case management services, and then linkage services are
also offered at our jail and we had two hundred
and twenty seven person's rect that And what that means
is as the person is getting ready to leave exit
the jail, especially if we've identified mental health and or
substance use issues, we want to make sure that there's
(20:12):
a plan already in place before they leave to get
those follow up services in the community. We want to
prevent any kind of recidivism, which is a fancy word
for coming back to the jail. We don't want that
to happen. We want them to be able to get
out of the jail, get the services they needed while
they're in the jail, continue those when they're out in
(20:32):
the community. Those can be mental health, drug alcohol services,
but they could be some of those basic services again,
employment and education, housing, shelter, food, clothing, all these basic things.
We want to try to arrange for those services before
they leave the jail. So that's what Jail Community Linkage's
services are all about. And again we were very successful
(20:55):
in terms of those served and of those serve the
ones that had no new or rest. At one hundred
and ninety out there's two twenty seven had no new arrest.
The other thing I mentioned lastly in my high level
report was the Juvenile Court Liaison. This is an individual
works with eighty seven youth in fiscal year twenty four
(21:18):
as well as adults, and the primary goal is to
make sure that there's a good interface between our juvenile court,
the probation officers, juvenile probation officers, and community agencies community partners,
whether that's schools, other treating agencies. They also serve to
(21:39):
help families negotiate some of these services, whether it's with
the court or in the broader community. And I think
the Liaison has been instrumental in improving the relationship between
the Board, community partners, and the juvenile court. You know,
every system has their own language, if you will, and
having somebody that can stand between the various systems to
(22:01):
help family and the individuals young people, we've seen a
benefit over the year. So appreciative of all the youth
and that family's impacted positively by the Liaison program. Last,
but not least, I just highlighted some of the fiscal
receipts and expenditures from the board. I indicated to members
(22:24):
that there's a little over four point seven million dollars
in terms of a board budget, not a big budget actually,
and I did point out that the board, actually our
budget was a deficit budget for fiscal year twenty five.
And all that means is that we allocated about thirty
thousand dollars more than we anticipated bringing in in revenues.
(22:48):
And that goes back to what I said some minutes
ago about the flat funding. We're trying to maintain all
the high quality services and also pay the folks that
provide those services a living wage, and we're trying to
be competitive with some of the surrounding counties so we
don't lose quality people to some of these bigger counties.
And that resulted, unfortunately in a little bit of a deficit,
(23:09):
which we were able to make up with some carryover
funds from the previous year. But all that to say,
it's important I think that the community knows that the
board is allocating the money that comes into it. The
board is not a bank, as my old boss used
to say. It is our job to allocate the funds
(23:30):
that come in to those quality services that meet the
needs of the Ashton County residents and that's what the
Board is doing. Next up on the busy agenda was
our keynote in this year. It was Judge Karen DeSanto Kellogg.
DiSanto Kellogg was voted into office back in twenty twenty
(23:51):
and she serves as our Juvenile Court as well as
Probate Court judge. And I had the pleasure of introducing
the judge and she had been an attorney in private
practice here in Ashland County and other counties focused on
family matters primarily. She's also served on various boards and
(24:12):
committees in the county, including Napleseed and advocates for families,
the old parenting plus you know they updated their name
if you didn't know that. And Judge Kellogg, on a
personal note, has been married to Brian who's an attorney
for twenty one years and they have five children. And
the judge talked about that a little bit in her talk,
which you know, I cannot do justice to her talk,
(24:38):
but I will just say that the highlights for me
had to do with the emphasis on the responsibility of
a community to help our young people, to help the
next generation. All of us have a responsibility to be parents,
if you will. Obviously the biological parents have a different responsibility,
(25:00):
maybe family and friends in the broader community, but we
all have a responsibility to help our young people be
the best, most successful adults that they can be. So
the judge really challenged us because she sees the young
people that maybe they there's not been enough support, there's
not been enough rallying, either by the biological parents or
(25:22):
the extended family or the community, and these young people
are struggling. So the judge really challenged the audience to
help to come alongside if you're a parent, being a
better parent, if your family and friends is coming alongside
the biological parents. If you're in the community, be that
(25:43):
positive person. One of the things that we often talk
about is adverse childhood experiences in Ashland County ACES. That's
some impactful, very important research that was done some years
ago that says adverse childhood experiences can very much get
in the way of young people being successful and it
can lead to all kinds of negative outcomes throughout the
(26:06):
lifespan if they're not mitigated. And they can be mitigated
in a variety of different ways. And what I mean
by that is various things. Even in spite of at
first childhood experiences, if there are other things going on,
they can help lessen the impact of those negative events.
And one of the primary things people don't always think
(26:27):
about this, one of the primary things that mitigates against
adverse childhood experiences being as detrimental and long lasting are
positive adults, consistent, caring, loving, dependable adults that are in
the life of these young people. And again this is
(26:48):
why I think the Judges message was so powerful. All
of us can be that to a young person, a teacher,
a coach, somebody at church, a neighbor. There are opportunities
for all of us to be that positive, caring, loving, supporting, dependable,
reliable adult to a young person. So I think the
(27:10):
Judge's message was right on target to the extent. We
have strong families, we have strong young people, we have
a strong up and coming generation. We're going to have
a thriving, robust community. So shout out to Judge to
Santa Okay. Log I really thought her keynote this year
was right on point and she did a wonderful job
(27:31):
in delivering it. From there, the home stress of the
luncheon had to do with two awards that we give out.
The first is the Beacon Award and the second is
the Community Partnership Award. In this year's Beacon Award went
to a long time counselor almost forty years in our community.
(27:53):
This counselor has been serving primarily the substance use disorder
population at CADA. Her name is Mary Joe jan Car
Mary Joe independently licensed counselor and social worker. In that
forty years, it's roughly she's seen almost eight thousand folks
over that time. Sometimes she's seen the person at various
stages of their life. I mentioned in the presentation of
(28:19):
the Beacon Award that it's not uncommon at all for
individuals that are struggling with substance use to have multiple
periods where they go through they're successful, then they're not successful,
maybe they have a relapse or a slip, they drop out,
and then they come back into treatment. And Mary Joe like,
I think all the counselors at a Kaida understand that
(28:39):
they explain that and they let the person know if
that does happen that they're welcome to return. There is
no shame, there is no judgment if they come back
to services three, four or five times, whatever it takes.
We want the individuals to be successful in their recovery,
and we know it usually just doesn't happen the first time. Oftentimes,
when I speak two groups, I asked them about weight
(29:02):
loss and dieting, if they've ever done that in their life,
or quitting smoking, think about you know, there's a there's
a small percentage of individuals that wake up and say
I'm going to do this, and then they do it.
And that's that more often than not, it takes multiple
times before we're successful in achieving our goals. No different
than some of this substance use disorder, folks that they're
(29:22):
they're struggling, they don't success succeed as well as they
want the first time or the second time. So Mary
Joe is oftentimes seeing people many times throughout their lifetime
until they get it right, until they get to the
point where they feel like they finally are in recovery
and are being able to maintain that recovery. We did
(29:44):
have a little fun at Mary Joe's expense talking about
some of her flamboyant dress styles, and I think some
of the insiders I had it at a CADA shared some
stories that I thought brought some color into life into
Mary Joe for the audience members. She just sometimes has
(30:05):
a way of saying things that brings a lot of
joy and laughter to the office. One of the things
that I learned as I was getting this information together
is just how much everybody enjoys working with Mary Joe
over the years, even though some of the work that
she has to do when doing some of these difficult
assessments with folks that have a history of substance use,
it's that's that's hard to be honest with somebody, be respectful,
(30:29):
but also be blunt. Sometimes when you need to be blunt.
Oftentimes when folks are struggling with substance use disorder, they
don't want to be honest about their own use and
some of the side of not side effects, but the effects,
if you will, of that use. So Mary Joe had
a way of doing that, being gentle but firm with
folks when when she needed to be that way. So
(30:52):
you know, the Martha Jordan's Beacon Ward was actually established
some years ago to honor Martha Phillips Jordan, or her legacy.
Martha was kind of the county's counselor if you will.
She used to write columns in the Times Gazette back
in the day. She worked with many folks in private
practice and other capacities over the years, and she really
(31:14):
had a love for this county and for the people
in it. So the award was established by the board
to just honor her recognize other outstanding leaders in our
community who reflect her work of supporting and caring for
our fellow citizens who struggle with mental health and substitute
issues by just helping them lead whole in independent lives.
(31:35):
So we are proud to give the award, the Martha
Jordan Beacon Award for twenty twenty four to marry Joe
jenkar So, congratulations Mary Joe. And last but not least,
we had an award this year, first time we did
this award, but it was important to the Board that
(31:57):
we recognize our partners and the Board cannot do its
work effectively without partnerships, whether that's our contract partnerships with
a Cada Appleseed or Catholic charities, but also our community partnerships.
And for the twenty twenty four Community Partnership Award, we
focused on the work in the partnership over the twenty
(32:19):
plus years of Sheriff Wayne E. Reisner. So the Community
Partnership Award recognizes outstanding organizations or individuals who have demonstrated
exemplary leadership in the community by working together with all
sectors public, private, governmental to ensure individuals and families with
mental health substance use concerns receive the vital care they
(32:40):
need to live productive lives. Effective partnerships are a cornerstone
of strong communities. And as I was preparing to present
the ward to the Sheriff, I had come across a
quote that's attributed to Einstein that says, quote in the
middle of every difficulty lies opportunity. The reason I thought
that was fitting as I think about the individuals in
(33:04):
our local jail, that is a difficult situation for a
lot of them, I would say most of them. But
in the middle of that difficulty, I think there is opportunity,
and that opportunity has really been made apparent to them
through the work of the sheriff because he's been so
open and encouraging and supportive of mental health and substance
(33:29):
use services at the jail. And we really wanted to
as a board recognize all those years of support that
we've had that is not given. Not all sheriffs welcome
the kind of robust services in their jail that our
sheriff does. We wanted to recognize that. We wanted to
recognize as ongoing advocacy for not only those services to
(33:52):
the folks the inmates there, but also his staff. We
do a lot of ongoing staff training and mental health
and substance use issues. They don't get a lot of that.
The officers don't get that in the academy as they're
coming up. So the sheriff believes strongly in training and
education for his officers and even self care when there
(34:14):
was a spike in suicides and overdose deaths in the
county in twenty twenty three. The sheriff reached out to
myself and Jerry Strasball, the executive director of Appleseed. He said, listen,
we need to do something to take care of our guys.
They have been exposed to a lot of these scenes,
these deaths, and you know it's had an impact on them.
(34:36):
So what can we do to help them? What tools
and abilities and skills information can we provide to them
to help them as they're dealing with all these losses.
So we did that in twenty twenty three, and we're
just that's just the kind of sheriff he is. He
cares about as folks. He cares about the people that
(34:57):
are at the jail. He cares about the visitors that
come down in all for services. He will not allow
services to be delivered at the jail if they're not
done in a professional quality way. He holds everyone there,
the individuals, the staff, and any visitors to very high
level and we appreciate that about the share of It's
that consistent professionalism, high expectations that makes our jail, I
(35:21):
think one of the best. When other people come to
the county. I let the audience know I hear the
same thing every time people come that haven't been at
Ashen County before. They remark on the robust services. They
just can't believe how many services we have in our
jail and the culture that the sheriff has created. So
one of the things I said to the audience was that,
(35:42):
you know, I can't think of a better testament to
an effective leader. Then when they leave, when they exit
an organization via retirement or any other way, that the culture,
the initiatives, their impact lives on after them after they've left,
So that if someone were to walk into that organization
(36:05):
years after that they've departed, that many of the if
not all, of their initiatives and the culture that they
created lives on after them. I think that just speaks volumes.
And as the sheriff is planning to retire in January
or twenty twenty five, I am confident that the legacy
that he's established will outlive him. It will go on
(36:31):
two years to come. And I have had some preliminary
discussions with the incoming sheriff, kirch Schneider, and I believe
he is onboard and we will have that ongoing partnership
with the new sheriff that we've had with a sheriff,
Wayne E. Reisner, but we will miss him and we
just wanted to honor him with the Community Partnership Award
(36:52):
before he retired in January, so that was it. You know,
we had some picture opportunities. So for those of you
that could not make the luncheon in person, I hope
this gives you some sense of what happened at the lunch.
The full annual report is available at our website www
(37:14):
dot Ashlan MHRB dot org and you can I summarized it,
so there's way more information in it, so we encourage
you to go out to the website and download that. Again,
I'll drop some additional information into the podcast episode from today,
but I hope that you'll join us next year for
(37:34):
the annual luncheon. We do this every year in October,
so be looking for that. But we'll have plenty of
opportunities to invite you to other events and activities and
trainings throughout state fiscal year twenty twenty five. Thanks again,
thank you for listening to another episode of the Keeping
Ashland Healthy podcast. The podcast is a production of the
(37:55):
Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County, Ohio. You
can reach the Board by calling one nine two eight
one three one three nine. Please remember that the Board
funds a local twenty four seven crisis line through Applese
Community Mental Health Center. It can be reached by calling
four one nine two eight nine sixty one one one.
That's four one nine two eight nine six one one one.
(38:18):
Until next time, Please join us in keeping Ashland healthy.
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