The Geauga County Board of Mental Health & Recovery Services provides a client-centered path to recovery by ensuring that treatment, prevention, and support services are available when people need them in our community.
Local suicide prevention coalitions play a critical role in addressing and reducing suicide rates within communities.
Our Mission:
The Geauga County Suicide Prevention Coalition is a group of people who partner with the community to create compassion and build hope through education, advocacy, and support for a future free from suicide.
Geauga is unique in that there is a mix of both suburban and rural areas with a population that ranges from 95-96,000 people. We are the second highest in median income as a county, yet large disparities exist that limit access to care for those who need it most. We average one or more suicides per month. Our primary focus is on men and teens and promoting safety, but we prioritize the safety and well-being of all Geauga residents. The Suicide Prevention Coalition provides community education and ongoing training and promotes access to resources. We welcome all community members and partners to join us!
Counties throughout Ohio are launching local County Hubs to Combat Opioid Addiction as called for in the last biennial budget. These Hubs will help to expand and strengthen local efforts to eradicate Ohio’s opioid epidemic. Through continued community efforts and building on the strengths of existing partnerships, local mental health and recovery services boards will utilize their County Hubs to nurture and reinforce county and community efforts to prevent and treat addiction, including opioids; educate youth and adults about opioids, addiction, and recovery; promote family building and workforce development as ways of combatting the effects of addiction on communities; and encourage community engagement in efforts to address the opioid epidemic.
Every sector of society is impacted by addiction and this epidemic. It’s going to take every part of every community to develop solutions to effectively address this problem. We need to collectively focus our community responses, from the individual to the public policy level, on meeting the needs of individuals and families impacted by addiction in Ohio. As the County Hubs to Combat Opioid Addiction are launched throughout the state, they will be collaborating with each other in an effort to identify and share successes. Together, we’ll build a comprehensive focus on prevention, education, intervention, interdiction, treatment, and recovery. Through this work, we’ll continue to bring hope to our communities and build the understanding that Treatment Works, People Recover, and Recovery Is Beautiful.
Crisis Intervention Teams (CIT) are community-based programs that bring together law enforcement, mental health professionals, advocates, people living with mental illness and their families, and other partners to improve community responses to people experiencing mental health crises.
THE GOALS OF OUR CIT PROGRAM
Our partner agency, Ravenwood Health, works in conjunction with the Criminal Justice Coordinating Center of Excellence (CJ CCoE) in the Department of Psychiatry of Northeast Ohio Medical University (NEOMED). This partnership supports providing technical assistance in the development and maintenance of CIT programs and criminal justice-mental health collaborations through improving and enhancing CIT resources and information.
In the spring of 2023, a partnership was formed between the Geauga County Commissioners, Geauga County Sheriff, Geauga County Clerk of Courts, and the Geauga County Board of Mental Health and Recovery Services to become a ‘Stepping Up Community’’ that develops the meaningful cross-system collaboration required to establish effective and efficient services for people with mental illness in the justice system. Christine Lakomiak, Executive Director of the Geauga County Board of Mental Health & Recovery Services, was named the Stepping Up Coordinator.
In May of 2023, the Geauga County Board of Mental Health & Recovery Services brought over twenty Geauga County agencies together to be led by NEOMED, the Criminal Justice Coordinating Center of Excellence, in a sequential mapping workshop. Sequential Mapping Workshops are designed to bring together community leaders and officials from different agencies and systems to find ways to help people with mental illnesses, substance use disorders, and intellectual and developmental disabilities get treatment instead of being arrested or incarcerated. In this workshop, community resources and strengths and gaps were identified at each step to develop local strategic action plans. The map allows us to improve collaboration and develop a plan of action for local populations involved with the justice system.
