Community Mental Health of Ottawa County partners with people with mental illness, developmental disabilities and substance use disorders and the broader community to improve lives and be a premier mental health agency in Michigan.
I am pleased to present the 2019 annual report. In this report you will find a description of our financial status, statistics on the number of people we served, and details on some of the important programs we provide to our community.
At the core of our services are our staff; both those employed by CMH and those employed by our many contractual providers. This is a small army of individuals who provide care, support, counseling, quality assurance, IT, finances, and other administrative duties to the people we serve. I am lucky to work closely with many of these staff members and can see the positive impact they have on peoples’ lives. Yes, this work can be stressful, but it is also profoundly rewarding to walk alongside someone on their road to recovery and the life they want to live.
Every detail in this report can be traced back to the hard work being done by dedicated staff be it answering the phone for a request for service, helping an individual learn a new skill, making sure a person has a safe place to live, or just simply listening. Without the resource of our staff we couldn’t accomplish these things yet we are at a crisis situation with some of our most valuable employees. There is a critical shortage of direct care workers; those people who work directly with our consumers to provide care, training, and support. The reason for this shortage is multifaceted but the solution seems fairly straight forward; these jobs need to be compensated at a fair and competitive rate. Your help in advocating
on this issue is very much appreciated.
I hope you will join me in recognizing the dedicated group of people
who make up our workforce.
RESOURCEShttps://phinational.org/advocacy
www.miottawa.org/Health/CMH
GROWTH AND RECOGNITION
Ottawa Pathways to Better Health (OPBH) uses an evidence-based community health worker (CHW) model designed to identify and address individual risk factors. CHWs walk alongside clients to set goals and assist in achieving them. CHWs are trusted members of the communities they serve; sharing common ethnicity, language, culture and life experiences with their clients. Following program development with community partners and funding from multiple sources, including the Mental Health Millage, OPBH was fully implemented in early 2017 as a 3-year pilot project. In the three years since its inception, OPBH has enjoyed tremendous growth and recognition as an essential community resource.
HIGHLIGHTS AND ACHIEVEMENTS:
• 1620 Individuals referred to OPBH to date
• 1040 Individuals received services to date
• Program growth from five to nine CHWs(2018-2019)
• Collaboration with CMHOC-two CHWs are embedded in CMH and work exclusively with CMH consumers
• Collaboration with Ottawa County Department of Public Health-Maternal Infant Health Program-in which
one full-time CHW works with pregnant women
• Initiated completion of Aces survey with clients which reveals that OPBH is reaching those at greatest risk
• Launched a fund raising campaign to assist clients with rental application fees for housing
• Recipient of 2018 and 2019 Mosely Team Award for Extraordinary CHW Service-Honorable mention