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OhioRISE Together | Issue 06 | July 2, 2024 |
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Governor Mike DeWine
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, 2024 State of the State Address featuring OhioRISE
So, I want to share part of a letter an Ohio mother sent to me about her son: “I am an adoptive mother with three kids, including my son, Tom. He had been physically and sexually abused starting at the age of five. In recent years, Tom started acting out and became physically aggressive -- hitting walls and smashing furniture, threatening to hurt us with knives… As a result of what he’s been through, he ran away, started using drugs to cope, and was physically aggressive toward a convenience store owner. He was arrested and locked up in detention -- and [all] he really needed was treatment.”
These are not isolated cases. This is the reality of life for a lot of Ohio parents, and too often, they just don’t know where to turn -- and really, they have been pretty much ignored. We are now giving them a lifeline through our OhioRISE program. Created two years ago, the program connects families and the children who have the most complicated needs to appropriate care -- right here in Ohio. All of these children need more than a doctor. They need therapists, prescribers, teachers, school counselors, and other caring people to help them heal. Since I delivered my State of the State address last year, we have added 14,000 Ohio children to OhioRISE, and today, we are serving 32,000 children -- 11,000 of whom are getting very intensive care, including Tom.
His mother went on to say in her letter: “With nowhere else to turn, relinquishing custody [of Tom] seemed like my only option -- until I was connected to the OhioRISE program. Since being enrolled in OhioRISE, we now have a team of professionals to support Tom and our family. We have found a residential treatment facility [where he can live] and receive the intensive treatment he needs. His behavior is improving, and we can visit him often. Additionally, OhioRISE helped connect my entire family with therapy following the incidents -- and we are healing.” This is what complete wrap around care should look like -- because no child, no parent, and no family should ever walk alone.
Some of the information was changed for privacy reasons.
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Tiffany Hamilton (L) Care Coordinator, Heather Brooks (R) Lead Parent Coordinator
What happens when a family has such a good care coordination experience that they want to be part of the OhioRISE work? We welcome them to the team! Harbor is a leading mental health and substance use disorder treatment provider in Ohio that serves more than 24,000 youth, adults, seniors, and families annually and provides a full range of mental health, telehealth, and substance use disorder treatment services.
Heather Brooks, mother of five, wasn’t sure what to do when her youngest child showed signs of having behavioral and emotional concerns. Heather works as a nurse, but even that professional experience did not provide developmental insights and connections to resources that she needed to assist her little one. Enter Harbor’s Ottawa County Care Coordinator Tiffany Hamilton!
Heather needed help and Tiffany introduced her to OhioRISE and the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) assessment, helping mom understand the needs of her child and the level and intensity of support available through the program. Next, a Child and Family Team was created by Tiffany, Heather and her child. The team worked with the family to find the resources they needed.
“Care coordination allowed my voice to be heard and provided hope, empowerment, and encouragement to get through the hard times,” Heather said. “The compassion, persistence, and commitment Harbor and OhioRISE provided combined with my experience and time with the program led me to want to help others the way Tiffany and Harbor helped me and my family.”
In March 2023, Harbor took the lead in submitting a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) System of Care grant through the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Seneca, Ottawa, Sandusky, and Wyandot counties. These communities were awarded nearly $4 million to build the system of care across the four counties. Inspired by the OhioRISE approach of family voice and choice, the grant started with parents, and it identified a need for a Lead Parent Coordinator for the program. As soon as the job was posted, Tiffany knew a perfect applicant— Heather!
“To me it was amazing to be able to watch the program help a family from the very beginning,” Tiffany said. “The help and hope given through care coordination made the family feel supported and heard. I have loved being a part of this success story!”
With more than 20 years in nursing experience, Heather joined Harbor as the Lead Parent Coordinator in December 2023. Since then, two additional Certified Parent Peer Specialists have been added to support OhioRISE Child and Family Teams and non-OhioRISE referrals from the communities.
“I've expanded my skills and knowledge in nursing to a different avenue after my experiences with my little one,” Heather said. “I found a deep passion for the mental health field and switched career paths from long-term care to mental health.”
Parent peer support has been very successful so far and Harbor is looking for resources to replicate the model in other parts of its catchment area.
If you would like to get involved with OhioRISE and learn more about how it’s already helping tens of thousands of Ohio children, visit the OhioRISE webpage.
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The Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM) is seeking stakeholder feedback to guide our efforts to better serve young people with behavioral health challenges and their caregivers throughout communities across the state. We understand that the OhioRISE program will continue to evolve to mature and address changing needs.
We ask you to raise your voice for OhioRISE by either completing this form or sending us an email to OhioRISE@medicaid.ohio.gov, where you can express your ideas for improving OhioRISE.
Over the past five years, ODM and our partners have been working together to begin shifting the system of care to keep more youth and families together, support young people and their caregivers with care coordination, and build up access to new services to support the complex mental health and substance use needs of the young people in our program. We have found that this long-term work requires tenacity, passion, and above all else deep collaboration among partners across our child-serving systems. OhioRISE continues to rely on stakeholder input to inform the evolution of our program.
Thank you for continuing to help us provide family-centric programs that reach every eligible child and youth who needs us statewide.
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ODM, in partnership with the State of Ohio’s Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Center of Excellence at Case Western Reserve University, is making a historic investment to helping to launch and expand access to a critical mental health service in 59 counties, which results in a total of 76 out of the 88 counties in Ohio having access to an Intensive Home-Based Treatment program. ODM authorized $10 million to support a much-needed mental health service called Intensive Home-Based Treatment (IHBT) that works with families in their home and communities every week.
IHBT is an intensive, time-limited mental health service for youth with serious emotional disabilities and their families, provided in the home, school and community where the youth lives, with the goal of safely maintaining the youth in the least restrictive, most normative environment. IHBT involves an individual clinician or team of providers delivering a comprehensive set of clinical and rehabilitative services that are designed to intensively treat the young person’s mental health conditions that significantly impair their functioning – often kids who need IHBT have significant challenges in multiple areas of their lives, including school, home, and the community. Some young people who need IHBT are involved with the juvenile justice system, child protection, or at risk for needing out of home care.
Access to IHBT services is one element of a comprehensive and robust system of care and is also one of the core services included in OhioRISE, the state’s transformative program aimed at helping children and youth with the most complex behavioral health challenges.
A full list of awardees is available on the Center of Excellence’s website.
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✔ Medicaid Eligibility and Enrollment
To enroll in OhioRISE, a child or youth must be determined eligible for and enrolled in Medicaid. This document explains how to submit an application to determine Medicaid eligibility.
Children and youth who may be eligible for OhioRISE must meet each of the following criteria:
- Are eligible for Ohio Medicaid.
- Are age 0-20.
- Require significant behavioral health treatment as indicated through a Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths or recent hospitalization for behavioral health reasons.
Children and youth may also be eligible for OhioRISE due to certain urgent conditions. For example, if they are inpatient in a hospital for behavioral health reasons.
✔ Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths assessment
A CANS assessment is a tool used to understand a young person’s needs and strengths. It also helps determine eligibility for OhioRISE and recommended treatment options to help the child/youth. The CANS was developed with leadership from Governor DeWine’s Children’s Initiatives and Ohio’s child-serving state agencies and is used by a wide variety of providers to inform care planning and decision-making for children and adolescents with behavioral health needs. For more information about the CANS assessment, click here.
Click here for more information about how to schedule a CANS assessment from a managed care organization, Medicaid Consumer Hotline, or Aetna, the OhioRISE plan.
Other community partners you can ask for a CANS assessment from:
- A local care management entity.
- Behavioral health providers or Family and Children First Councils, which may have a CANS assessor onsite or be able to link to one.
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Visit the Ohio Systems of Care for Youth and Families webpage to learn more about OhioRISE trainings. Trainings include intensive and moderate care coordination, Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS), Mobile Response Stabilization Service (MRSS), and Intensive Home-Based Therapy (IHBT). |
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This month we recommend, “Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones” by James Clear. This book provides practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results.
You can check out a copy at your local public library. Find the closest Ohio library near you here.
We also encourage you to check out the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities Wellness Project page for articles, papers, podcast episodes, guided meditation, and more! If you’re interested in creating a self-care routine, click on this short introduction video.
The goal for this section is to promote self-help and research-focused mental health books and resources to support your journey in prioritizing a healthy mind.
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If you or your family member is experiencing a mental, behavioral, or addiction crisis, know that the following resources are available to help. |
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If you or someone close to you is experiencing a mental health or behavioral health crisis, call 1-888-418-MRSS (6777).
Families, youth, and young adults up to age 21 who are experiencing difficulties or distress can receive assistance within 60 minutes after contacting MRSS. You may also receive up to 42 days of intensive, in-home stabilization services, and linkage to on-going supports. If MRSS is not available in your area, you will still be connected to crisis services.
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If you are experiencing a crisis, text “4hope” to 741741 from anywhere in Ohio, anytime.
Crisis Text Line is here for any crisis. A live, trained crisis counselor receives the text and responds, all from a secure online platform. The volunteer crisis counselor will help you move from a hot moment to a cool moment.
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If you or someone close to you is experiencing a mental health or addiction crisis, call, text, or chat 988.
By contacting the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, you will reach a trained call specialist who can offer help and support in your time of need.
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