Collaborations

Appleseed collaborates and partners with multiple organizations throughout Ashland County. Representatives from Appleseed sit on multiple county-wide coalitions including, but not limited to: Ashland County Trauma-Resiliency Collaborative, Ashland County Domestic Violence Taskforce, Sexual Assault Response Team (SART), Family & Children First Council, Older Adult Behavioral Health Coalition, Youth Crisis Response Team, Suicide Prevention Coalition, among others.

These collaborative partners are committed to providing leadership and direction to issues affecting the mental and physical health of the community’s residents. The individual experience held by each member shapes how Appleseed and the partners provide comprehensive, seamless services throughout the community. Each partner’s role is to provide assistance and training to collaboration members about their respective agency’s services and protocols, provide a representative from their agency for consultation, share updates and events, make referrals when appropriate, and offer strategies to assist these coalitions with achieving their goals and objectives through a shared community vision.

Ashland County Domestic Violence Taskforce & SART

Appleseed's Safe Haven program is the lead agency for the Ashland County Domestic Violence Taskforce & Sexual Assault Response Team (SART). Members of this Coordinated Community Response team are committed to providing leadership and direction to domestic and sexual violence services in Ashland County. The individual experience held by each member shapes how the community provides comprehensive victim services. Each partner’s role is to provide assistance and training to other members about their respective agency protocols, provide a representative from their agency for consultation, share updates and events, make referrals when appropriate, provide program evaluation and development, and offer other strategies to assist this project with achieving its goals and objectives through a shared community vision.

Membership: Members include representatives from Safe Haven as well as various community stakeholders that are responsible for overseeing the project and support its overall goals and objectives including advocates, law enforcement, attorneys, prosecutor's office, health and medical professionals, educational professionals, and other social service and victim-serving agencies.

Meetings: The team meets quarterly on the first Tuesday of the quarter at 8:30am.

Management: Members are notified of upcoming meetings by email at least two weeks in advance. Meeting minutes of discussion items are documented and distributed by email to all members and a copy is maintained on file by a member of Safe Haven staff. A representative from Safe Haven shares status updates on project goals and objectives and the Collaborative Board provides specific oversight by offering resources, expertise, information, and/or suggestions to continuously improve outcomes for victims.

Working Together: The team is committed to working together to achieve project goals and objectives. Members work together to share resources and expertise with one another to promote safety and unduplicated community resources and services for persons impacted by domestic and sexual violence in our community. This coordinated response ensures that victims are provided access to timely intervention, support, safety planning, and resources.

Source: RCDV Safe Haven Program

Ashland County Trauma-Resiliency Collaborative

Background: The Ashland Trauma/Resilience Collaborative was established in 2016 and was created as one of four groups to address themes that were identified by a major community survey, the Ashland County Health Assessment completed in 2015. The four groups created by Ashland Family & Children First Council address (1) health and wellness, (2) poverty, (3) heroin addiction/substance abuse and (4) violence across the lifespan. The Ashland Trauma-Resilience Collaborative is the group that will focus on the impact and prevention of violence

Purpose: The purpose of the Ashland Trauma/Resilience Collaborative Is to provide networking, outreach, training and education in the area of adverse childhood experiences, resilience, interpersonal violence and trauma across the lifespan and across all community settings including healthcare, education, social services, child and adult protective services, business, criminal justice, and the community at large.

Goal: The goal of this group is to address the effects of trauma and to prevent interpersonal violence from occurring in the first place by promoting safe, stable, nurturing relationships in families.

Membership: Anyone who is interested in joining the collaborative may do so and there is no cost for membership. Many individuals who have joined represent an agency or organization, but others are attend as individual community members and advocates.

Meetings: The Collaborative meets on the second Friday of each month from 11:00-noon at the Mental Health and Recovery Board offices

Source: Ashland County Mental Health & Recovery Board

Family & Children First Council

About Us: The Ashland County Family & Children First Council is a network of local service agencies, government, advocates, parents and funders of services for children and families.

The FCFC holds as its purpose to improve understanding and knowledge of county-based services. It serves to identify service gaps and improve delivery for families seeking assistance with their children. We have representatives from twenty-six different county entities and over sixty members and partners on various committees and activities.

Six Commitments to Child & Well-Being

Expectant parents and newborns thrive
Infants and toddlers thrive
Children are ready for school
Children and Youth succeed in school
Youth choose health behaviors
Youth successfully transition into adulthood

What we do for Families

Provide information to families on available services including education, disabilities, health, mental health, social services, etc
Link families with children to vital service supports to promote family stability and healthy family and child functioning
Assure that agency staff working with families coordinate their efforts
Help families know their rights with agencies and services
Help parents/caregivers be active participants in service plans for their children

How we work

We start with the family. Families are the center of our work and are active participants in the service planning, and decision-making process. Our ultimate goal is to enable families to function independently of the system and increase their ability to be self-sufficient.

We take a personalized approach in building a unique service opportunity plan based on a foundation of the individual family’s strengths. This plan is also centered around respect for the cultural, racial and ethnic differences of the families we serve.

Our work is results-oriented. We employ ongoing evaluation of outcomes to ensure effectiveness. We believe that effective coordination of services for our families includes delivery of high quality services; reducing and eliminating duplicative efforts among agencies and barriers to collaboration; integration of community and family supports; and full utilization of funding resources.

Ashland County Family & Children First Council connects the dots to eliminate redundancy and bring resources together for planning, monitoring and improving outcomes for families and children.

Source: AshlandCounty.org

Older Adult Behavioral Coalition

The mission of the Older Adult Behavioral Health Coalition of Ashland County is to unify, educate, and collaborate among professionals who work with older adults and their caregivers in all areas of mental, physical, and behavioral healthcare. We also strive to involve and include older adults who are consumers of healthcare services. Our coalition has three active focus areas:

Access/Crisis – which focuses on aspects of assessment, intervention, availability of resources and approaches to older adults experiencing a behavioral health crisis, a primary medical crisis, or both.
Training – with a focus on what training opportunities currently exist related to older adults and their well being as well as community needs which may be met by additional trainings.
Community Awareness/Resources – which will focus on "spreading the word" to the community through a variety of mechanisms highlighting what the coalition is all about and what resources are available to the community. The "Vial of Life" program will be initiated from within this group.

One resource the coalition provides to the community is the Caregiver Notebook, the notebook provides guidance, suggestions, and resources to caregivers in the community. Click here to download the notebook.

In addition to the Notebook, the coalition has developed a RESOURCE GUIDE that allows for quick look up of resources available to older adults in Ashland County. Click here to download the resource guide. The pages in this PDF are out of order, however, this allows for easy printing of the guide. To print the guide instruct your printer to print:

Double sided
Flip on short edge

Once printed the guide will fold in half nicely and the pages will be in the correct order.

The Older Adult Behavioral Health Coalition is a partnership between the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County, the Ohio District 5 Area Agency on Aging and many local partners interested in the behavioral health care of older adults in Ashland County. The Coalition began meeting in October of 2006 and meets monthly.

For additional information, or information on how you can participate on the coalition, please contact the Mental Health & Recovery Board at 419-281-3139

Source: Ashland County Mental Health & Recovery Board

Youth Crisis Response Team

Mission Statement: The purpose of the Ashland County Crisis Response Team is to provide a valuable community service geared toward immediate intervention for all students, faculty, and staff of Ashland County Schools and surrounding areas involved in a traumatic situation.

Services

Upon request, provide trained personnel for on-site intervention in the event of a crisis.
Assist school districts with writing and updating local crisis response programs.
Provide in-service training to faculty and staff in the areas of crisis response and post-traumatic stress debriefing.

Access
To activate the Youth Crisis Response Team contact the Appleseed Community Mental Health Center's 24 hour crisis hotline: 419-289-6111 or 888-400-8500.

For non-emergency questions call the Mental Health & Recovery Board at (419) 281-3139.

Please check out the Activation Protocols for detail information regarding activating the Youth Crisis Response Team.

Please also check out the "Myth & Facts" fact page about working with the Youth Crisis Response Team.

For forms and other resources when dealing with a crisis please download the Ashland County Youth Crisis Response Team Packet. These resources are particularly intended for schools or other large community organizations.

Source: Ashland County Mental Health & Recovery Board

Suicide Prevention Coalition

In September 2003, the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County received a $10,000 grant from the Ohio Department of Mental Health for the purpose of establishing a community coalition to develop a suicide prevention plan. The first organizational meeting of the coalition was held in October. More than 50 individuals representing all aspects of the community attended, including county and city government, law enforcement, schools, providers, survivors and health care professionals. The Ashland County Suicide Prevention Plan is the result of four planning meetings of the coalition. The coalition identified target groups and then identified objectives for each group. The coalition also identified activities that would be utilized to reach these objectives

For more information please download the Ashland County Suicide Prevention Plan