MindPeace
5642 Hamilton Avenue
Cincinnati, OH 45224
Boosting Access to Youth Mental Health Services Amidst a National Mental Health Workforce Crisis
Since our organization’s launch, MindPeace has been a leading change agent within the Greater Cincinnati region with a laser focus on the development and ongoing support of school-based, stakeholder-selected partnerships.
At the site level, we help partner schools identify the mental health needs of their student population and assist in the selection of community partners to provide quality, affordable, and accessible in-school therapy services for students.
Once a partnership is established, we work collaboratively with both parties to provide technical support; ensure a healthy, sustainable, mutually-beneficial relationship; and connect schools with evidence-based mental health prevention, intervention and crisis support resources and programming.
Through our extensive collaboration with 24 school districts and more than 205 local schools, we’re able to carefully track referral data and identify common barriers to care. It's through this critical work that we initiate quality projects to improve adolescent brain health throughout the region.
Last fall, MindPeace surveyed our 14 partner agencies (including Cincinnati Children’s Hospital) to gauge the depths of this systemic issue. At that time, they reported more than 150 job postings for Licensed Social Workers to fill a variety of school and community-based positions. When you consider that the average full time therapist carries a caseload of 25-35 youth, these open positions represent a systems-based shortage impacting somewhere between 3,750 and more than 5,250 children and teens across our region.
Program Goals:
Our team at MindPeace has been sounding the alarm about the workforce shortage in recent years, and, together with our Network Partners, we previously began the important work of listening for and identifying root causes and of exploring ways to jumpstart the behavioral health workforce pipeline within our region.
Meanwhile, while these critical long-term efforts continue, it’s imperative that we simultaneously address key short-term challenges born from the crisis through:
-Connecting vulnerable youth to community-based resources when their school is without a school-based therapist or their school provider has reached capacity.
-Encouraging schools to expand Tier 1 prevention and Tier 2 interventions for students as they experience longer-than-usual wait times for treatment.
-Continuing to lead quality improvements within our region to improve systemic barriers to care, shore up gaps within our youth mental health safety net, and help support students in developing critical resiliency skills.
1. Maximize student access to care amidst the current mental health workforce crisis. Timeframe: 9/4/2023 - 6/30/2024
2. Enhance Tier 1 Prevention & Tier 2 Intervention Services for students who may have delayed treatment due to the workforce crisis. Timeframe: 9/4/2023 - 6/30/2024
3. Continue to co-create, test and push forward community solutions to better connect local youth with the mental health support they deserve. Timeframe: 9/4/2023 - 9/1/2024
3A. Improvement of Psychiatric Hospital to School Transitions
3B. The piloting and refinement of a brain health intervention to combat symptoms of anxiety depression in students attending high performing schools.
3C. Access to Care advocacy focused on educating leaders about today’s unsustainable financial models and workforce shortage with a goal of asking them to prioritize key policies and funding strategies.
Program Results:
No grant evaluation report was submitted.
Website:
http://www.mindpeacecincinnati.com Amount: $25,000
Date: July 2023
