(COLUMBUS, Ohio)—Ohio Governor Mike DeWine today announced the award of $90 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds aimed at strengthening mental health and addiction crisis services statewide. A total of 37 regional projects will receive funding through the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (MHAS).
“Across Ohio, people of all ages and their families are seeking care in record numbers for substance use and mental health concerns,” said Governor DeWine. “I am proud of the work we are doing in Ohio to make services more visible, accessible and effective for all Ohioans faced with mental health and substance use crises. By expanding access to a full array of crisis services, more Ohioans of all ages will receive the care they need in their local community so that they can recover and reach their full potential.”
OhioMHAS will oversee coordination of the grants in collaboration with county Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health (ADAMH) Boards. As a part of the planning process, Boards were required to work with community partners (service providers, law enforcement, hospitals) to identify local needs and gaps in their regional crisis systems and to develop collaborative projects to add capacity statewide. The resulting awards will fund a mix of capital improvement projects (26 projects, $74.5M) and infrastructure projects (11 projects, $15.5M), closing locally identified gaps in care such as short-term residential beds, behavioral health urgent care, mobile crisis response teams, and facility/IT improvements. (See attached list of funded projects).
Specifically, the funding will:
- Add more than 225 new residential beds for Ohioans in crisis
- Establish 5 Behavioral Health Urgent Care clinics
- Support 2 new Crisis Intervention and Observation units
- Launch 6 new mobile crisis services teams
- Assist with 4 technology upgrade projects
- Support 2 crisis consultancy projects
“Because of these investments, more Ohioans and their families will have a better response to their behavioral health crisis needs than ever before,” said OhioMHAS Director Lori Criss. “With these projects, Ohio is taking a leap forward to reverse decades of neglect for Ohio’s behavioral health crisis care system, ultimately creating a more hopeful future for people experiencing a behavioral health crisis.”
Strengthening crisis services at the community level is an ongoing priority for the department. Learn more about OhioMHAS’ crisis work HERE.
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