Building A Better Tomorrow For Hancock County - The proposed Building a Better Tomorrow for Hancock County project will be led and implemented by Family Resource Center of Northwest Ohio, Inc. (FRC) to serve individuals, workers, and families who are affected or at risk for suicide in Hancock County, Ohio. The project will utilize Zero Suicide framework, a system-wide approach that requires transformative change to prevent suicide and improve community health measures while bridging its population to services. Hancock County is home to about 76,000 people, with more than half (about 41,100) residing in the "micropolitan" county seat of Findlay. It is mostly rural, white (94%), and about 11% live below the federal poverty line. According to the Findlay Police Department's 911 dispatch call data that was gathered from January 2, 2018 to May 9, 2019, 40% (921 mental health calls out of 2,328 total calls) of the calls were related to someone in the community with a behavioral health issue. Within these mental health calls, 55% were suicide calls and 33% were mental health calls form a person suffering from mental illness. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, local community leaders report a significant increase in mental health distress, including suicidality. The project will provide a continuum of services from (1) community prevention through targeted training's and specific awareness/educational campaigns, (2) targeted or population specific interventions through prevention, intervention, screenings, assessments, and direct services, and (3) recovery support services through connected peer connection, community events and responses. Subpopulations to be served include adults age 25 years or older who are at risk for suicide or have attempted suicide, COVID-19 essential workers (e.g., first responders, grocery workers/food distributors, agriculture community (e.g., farmers), veterans, domestic violence victims and their dependents. Evidence-based practices/programs will include Mental Health First Aid, Question, Persuade, and Refer (QPR), Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale (C-SSRS), Ohio Local Outreach to Suicide Survivors (LOSS) Teams, Grief Recovery Method, Helping Children with Loss (HCWL) workshop, and VOICES program. The overarching goal will be to change the paradigm about the risk and protective factors associated with mental health, including suicidality, and substance use issues based on the latest science. FRC aims to serve 5,000 individual through direct and indirect services over the 16-month project period. FRC will target 50 individual who receive direct services for the GPRA NOMS data collection.
