MOUNT VERNON — For 50 years, Mental Health & Recovery for Licking and Knox County has planned and implemented a behavioral health care services network in Knox County.
Thursday, Executive Director Kay Spergel and Community Relations Coordinator Emily Morrison reviewed the organization’s budget and services for the Knox County commissioners.
“We’ve been very blessed in this county for years to have had the generosity of the taxpayers here approve a levy, and that has helped purchase services for children and families and adults that have addressed all sorts of mental health and addiction issues, including prevention,” Spergel said.
“We’re a very strong supporter of prevention. Our services are universal services. That means we serve everyone.”
Community partners include the sheriff’s office, police departments, schools, businesses, and other social service organizations.
An 18-member board oversees MHR. Knox County has six board members. The state and commissioners each appoint three.
“Board members in Licking County vote on what happens in Knox County, and Knox County board members vote on what happens in Licking,” Spergel explained. “I will say that both sets of our board members from both counties are very, very thoughtful about the other county.”
MHR funds services, working through nonprofits and a few smaller for-profit groups. Knox County partners include The Main Place, The Freedom Center, New Directions, Pathways, and Behavioral Healthcare Partners.
BHP is the largest group in both counties. It provides comprehensive behavioral health services, both addiction and mental health.
“They are our crisis workers. We have to dedicate one group to be our 24/7 health officers, crisis workers, and that’s what they do,” Spergel explained.
Budget
MHR’s budget is around $15 million.
Knox County’s levy brings in about $1.25 million. Licking County pulls in between $4.25 million and $4.5 million. The rest of the funding comes from state and federal resources.
“Right now, our budget is a little inflated because we are the pass through [agency] for a $3 million ARPA grant, which is a state contribution toward building the crisis center that BHP is doing,” Spergel said.
“So that makes our budget look a little bigger than it is.”
MHR received two Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) grants.
“Those two grants collectively brought in $1.5 million to help bring in innovative practices. It’s why we have a MAT, or a medically assisted treatment, program in the jail that the Freedom Center operates that we’re very proud of, and that has worked very well,” Spergel said.
“It’s why we have some of the prevention that we have in the schools through New Directions, called Sources of Strength, which teaches protective factors to children.”
MHR is considering applying for another HRSA grant.
“These are very, very competitive federal grants, so Knox has a lot to be proud of that we received two of them,” Spergel said.
When MHR applies for the grants, it has to show unmet need. An unmet need might be that services are in place but need to be expanded; therefore, the additional money would enable MHR to provide more services to more people.
Demonstrated success with a particular approach to solving a problem is called capacity building.
“We can use that capacity to demonstrate success to say if you would just give us a little bit more money, we could have even greater success to beat our outcomes,” Spergel explained.
Primary goals for MHR behavioral health
The state requires MHR to file a community plan annually. Spergel said the plan lists decreasing the suicide and unintentional overdose fatality rates for each county as the two primary goals.
“There are many different efforts that we use, either through prevention, treatment, and recovery supports in order to accomplish this,” she said. “So, when we seek additional funds, we stress the fact that we are already using what we would refer to as evidence-based practices that have proven to be successful with that population of people we’re seeking more funding for and that we would continue to use that approach and maybe consider using others on top of it.”
