Mental Health America of Ohio (MHAFC )

Throughout 2022, Mental Health America of Ohio (mhaohio) continued to be a caring advocate and connector in Mental Health. We've come alongside individuals and families when they need help, fostered growth and healing inside our communities, and advocated for improved access and affordability for Mental Health services. Our peer recovery support (prs) services for professionals who use their lived experience to help others on their path to recovery continued to grow. Our team held nine virtual trainings with more than 125 professionals completing the class. We also launched a field placement program in partnership with southeast healthcare, reestablished our peer employer learning collaborative, and continued our prs newsletter which includes job opportunities, additional trainings, and support services to maintain a strong network of peers. The poem maternal Mental Health program continued to grow in 2022, receiving 15% more referrals to the program than 2021, for a total of 2,739. 153 participants benefited from poem's peer support groups - almost 60 volunteers offered peer support via support group facilitation or one- on-one mentorship. Poem also offered several educational presentations to program partners and potential participants throughout the year. Poem rise - maternal Mental Health services exclusively for black and african american moms/birthing persons on their path to recovery - served 36% of our poem clients in 2022. Poem rise hosted six support group sessions a month and three virtual pathways to wellness events, which provided dozens of black mothers an interactive space to engage with black Mental Health and maternal Health professionals about accessing better care for themselves. Statewide Mental Health first aid (mhfa) effort completed its second grant with the Ohio department of Mental Health and addiction services. In partnership with lead organization mha of northern Kentucky and southwest Ohio, the project team surpassed its goal set by its funder of training 6,000 ohioans and brought its total up to 11,000+ residents trained in adult or youth mhfa, representing 70+ organizations and individuals from over 50 Ohio counties. Locally, the mhfa team trained 364 individuals through 18 courses (9 adult classes and 9 youth classes). In 2022, the get connected program in fairfield county served a total of 299 people, providing referrals, information, and advocacy services to members of the community. The program grew significantly from 2021 to 2022 and that growth was reflected in the increase in funding for the role of program manager from 75% fte to 100% fte, starting in july of 2022. Throughout the year, this program developed affiliations with six community partners who have been providing referrals to the program, increasing its reach and impact across fairfield county. Our support groups program hosted a total of 14 active groups across franklin and fairfield county covering topics including anxiety, depression, bipolar, ocd, psychotic-spectrum disorders, and families of individuals with Mental Health concerns. Among these groups, this program provided 2,635 contact hours reaching 266 unique participants in the first half of the year and 289 participants in the second half. The program is made possible with a roster of twenty-nine volunteer facilitators helping to guide participants in sharing their experiences and building supportive connections with others. Facilitators and participants agree, "our support group is a community. People leave feel heard rather than judged." With the expansion of the support groups manager position to a full-time role, we were able to revise and standardize our materials to support facilitators, increase participant outreach to community members with additional communications, and implement more robust evaluation methods to track our reach and impact. In 2022, the pro bono counseling program (pbcp) continued to serve un- and underinsured residents of franklin county by connecting 126 individuals to volunteer clinicians for free short-term counseling. Volunteer clinicians donated 647 hours of counseling in the calendar year. Our team recruited 31 new volunteer clinicians, each of whom committed to seeing a minimum of one client for at least 12 free counseling sessions each year. The get connected program offered care navigation to nearly 1,000 callers in 2022. One participant reported, "i love everything about the program. Everyone i worked with understood my needs and took a lot of stress of off me helping my find someone. I can't tell you enough how much you guys helped me thank you for all you do" family advocate, which offers extended care navigation and support to family members supporting a loved one with a Mental illness, worked with thirty new families. The occumetrics program team conducted 15 assessments with a combination of new and previously engaged agencies. The program team expanded to add a full-time coordinator, and increased funding allowed us to provide implementation support to agencies for the first time. The massive occumetrics data set and accumulated program experiences were able to inform the senior director's participation on two workforce development councils serving the state and franklin county respectively. Mhaohio also hosted the Ohio legislative Mental Health caucus with co- chairs, senators bob hackett (r-10) and nickie j. antonio (d-23) and representatives laura lanese (r-23) and dontavius jarrells (d-25). Senator stephanie kunze and representative jarrells also received recognition from Mental Health America (national) as state legislative champions. The franklin county suicide prevention coalition (fcspc) grew its team by adding an fcspc manager position to oversee training, outreach, and volunteer initiatives. In 2022, the fcspc directly engaged 522 community members through eight suicide prevention presentations and outreach events. Additionally, the fcspc coordinated 12 evidence-based question, persuade, and refer trainings, providing 181 community members with critical suicide prevention knowledge and skills. Throughout the year, the fcspc partnered with local media to decrease stigma and increase awareness of suicide prevention resources through interviews with la mega, nbc4, north american broadcasting company, Ohio 24/7 now, and the columbus dispatch.