The Mental Health & Recovery Board of Portage County

Hand-to-Hand Education Classes registration information

MHRB, Townhall II awarded State Incentive Grant

New Leaders committed to serving residents in need
while watching the bottom line

The Mental Health & Recovery Board of Portage County and Townhall II will have a
boost in their efforts to protect local youth from the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse
and addiction with the awarding of a three-year federal State Incentive Grant.

The Mental Health & Recovery Board of Portage County celebrated the volunteer service of
Dennis Missimi of Kent while welcoming back two former members at its July meeting.

Missimi was a board member for 13 years, four of those years as chairman. He has also
provided leadership for the board’s finance and program planning committees. Before joining
the Mental Health & Recovery Board, Missimi served for six years on the board of trustees
for Townhall II, an agency in the board’s network of services.

Missimi has worked primarily in the public sector, most recently as chief of transit police
and director of risk management for the Portage Area Regional Transportation Authority
and as service director for the City of Kent.

As the board said good-by to him, it welcomed back two former members who together
previously donated 22 years of service. Barbara Evans, M.Ed., of Rootstown, a school
psychologist, was reappointed by Portage County Commissioners. She retired from Ravenna
City Schools in 2004 after 35 years of counseling students. Now on the staff of the Portage
County Educational Services Center, she was on the Mental Health & Recovery Board from
1989 to 1997 and served as chairman for one year.

Ron Heineking of Kent holds the distinction of being the longest-serving member in the
5-year history of the board with 14 years and two months by the time he left the board in
1995. He was chairman from 1980 to 1986. A former Kent City Police Chief and former
member of Kent City Council, he was reappointed to the board by county commissioners.

While Dixie Benshoff Ludick, Ph.D. of Aurora, is the newest member of the Mental Health & Recovery Board of Portage County, she's a veteran in the area of mental health services in her
work as a psychologist. Dr. Ludick was appointed by the Ohio Department of Mental Health to
fill a seat designated for a mental health professional.

Dr. Ludick has worked in the Bedford City Schools District for six years
coordinating mental health care for elementary students which includes assessment,
counseling, staff and parent education and assisting teachers when students have emotional
problems. She has worked for The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Akron General Medical Center,
Coleman Professional Services and Kent State University. She has written and published
extensively in her field.

She is a member of the Ohio Psychological Association and is listed in the National Registry
for Health Service Providers in Psychology. She volunteers as an assistant basketball coach
with the Aurora Parks and Recreation League.

If you need to talk to someone about suicide, call the 24-hour HELPLINE at Townhall II
at 330-678-4357 or 1-866-449-8518. Townhall II is funded through the Mental Health &
Recovery Board as part of its network of services for Portage County residents.

The Mental Health & Recovery Board of Portage County’s move this fall to downtown Kent
will bring the county government agency into compliance for public office space and will
alleviate crowding.

The board approved a lease to rent the former Ohio Edison building, 155 E. Main St., at its
August meeting. The most recent tenants were the Kent Chamber of Commerce and
Leadership Portage County. MHRB staff estimates that the board office will move to it new
ome in early November after remodeling is completed.

"We’ve kept our rent at a minimum for several decades but the growth in our services and
changes in laws have changed how we need to operate the office to be efficient. We spent
he last year researching rental properties, properties for sale and remodeling the space we
are in. We looked at what was available around the county. The proposed site will better
serve Portage County and help us meet compliance and growth issues,” said Linda Peterson
of Aurora, board chairman.

The board will be leaving its home for the past 25 years at the Trans-Ohio building, 1640
Franklin Ave., in Kent near intersection of SR 261 and Franklin.

"We’re looking forward to being downtown Kent in a facility that will accommodate the
needs of residents more effectively and efficiently,” said Executive Director Roberta O’Keefe.

The decision to leave the office site was in part driven by the problem of accessibility for
persons with disabilities, especially those using wheelchairs, and regulations covering
management information systems, said O’Keefe. Board staff has also used all available
ffices and storage, limiting space for an increasing number of meetings.

Plans for bringing the new rental site into compliance for persons with disabilities were
reviewed by former board member Ronald Franklin of Kent who uses a wheelchair and has
encouraged the board during his term to improve accessibility. He also works as an advocate
for persons with disabilities. He compiled a list of needed changes that would bring the offices
into compliance as far as handicap accessibility.

Another major problem was complying with privacy and computer security regulations in the
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act(HIPAA). The new space will meet the
law’s regulations for government offices.

Former board member Dennis Missimi of Kent who worked on details of the project said he
and staff looked at more than 10 locations for purchase or rental in Portage County. Other
sites were not suitable to meet the space and management information needs and would
have required more extensive renovation, he concluded.

New Leaders committed to serving residents in need
while watching the bottom line

The new officers of the Mental Health & Recovery Board of Portage County will put their
leadership skills to work continuing the board's commitment to balancing wise use of tax
dollars with serving residents in need.

"We spend extensive time looking at projections for local, state and federal funding to
make sure we strike that balance and are good stewards of the tax dollars that have been
entrusted to us," said Linda R. Peterson of Aurora, the new board chairman. She took
over for John Graves of Kent who went off the board after eight years of volunteer service.

Peterson, who served as vice chairman last year, was appointed to the board in 2000
by Portage County Commissioners. She has a background in counseling and teaching.
Peterson has a master's degree in marriage, family and child counseling and a degree in
business administration.

Her vice chairman is Joe Vero, also of Aurora, who worked for 32 years as an engineering
anager at Caterpillar Industrial and directed research and development for four years at
Daewoo Equipment Corporation. He currently serves on the Aurora Planning Commission.
Vero has a family member who has a long-term mental illness. He was appointed to the
Mental Health & Recovery Board by the Ohio Department of Mental Health in 2002.

The board is the county government agency which funds, plans and monitors mental
health and substance abuse treatment and prevention services for more than 5,700
Portage residents each year. Services are provided through the board's network of
local community agencies including Coleman Professional Services, Children's Advantage,
Townhall II, Family & Community Services Inc. and The Bair Foundation.

"It is imperative that we as a group see to it that funds are directed to those programs
that will provide the greatest impact on those being served. Although we would like to see
all programs funded,it is not economically practical. The 'well' is only so deep, and we
must be fiscally responsible," Vero said.

Although the reality of funding challenges are always on the minds of board members,
both Peterson and Vero pointed to the progress made in county services since the passage
of the 2003 1-mill replacement levy.

After four years of flat allocations, the board increased funds going to counseling, prevention
education, emergency services, psychiatric care for adults and youth and domestic violence
counseling for the past fiscal year and the current year. Agencies received funds to restore
services, cover services that lost other funding, add new needed services, expand
state-mandated services and increase prevention education.

Agreeing that the passage of the replacement levy was a major accomplishment, the
new board leadership wanted to thank voters and taxpayers on behalf of the board and
consumers.

"We still can't fund any particular service 100 percent but we can make sure the county
has a strong foundation for maintaining a network of care that can respond to many of the
problems families are having," Peterson explained. She pointed out that because the board
requires a high standard of quality from network agencies, there is continual dialogue
about how to solve problems.

She would like to focus on more training and education for board members. "Each month
there is new information from the state or federal levels that impacts what we do locally.
The better our knowledge base, the better our discussions and planning for what
needs to happen in Portage County," she said.

For Vero board member education about each of the network agencies is a personal goal.
"We need to talk to staff, observe their operations and learn about their problems.
This is an area where we can improve our relationship with and understanding of
each of the agencies," he added.

As for the challenges ahead this year, Peterson sees the board needing to focus on
services for adults and youth who are involved with the justice system. Their numbers
are increasing. Many are repeatedly involved with law enforcement and the courts
which clogs dockets and consumes limited resources . County mental health and
recovery boards across the state are looking for ways to stop the cycle for offenders
with specialized courts and treatment.

Another area where the board could have impact is advocating for a state law in Ohio
that requires insurance companies to cover treatment for mental illnesses and
addictions at the same rates as physical illnesses, Peterson added.

During the year, Vero will be working on finding ways to expand board revenues
and digging into long-range planning, measuring results and retooling services based on
results.