COMMUNITY CARE — Coleman Health Services’ office at 3150 Johnson Road is one of the organization’s three offices in Steubenville, with others located on North Sixth Street. -- Christopher Dacanay

(Editor’s note: This is the fourth installment in a four-part series highlighting major Jefferson County organizations helping those with mental health issues.)

STEUBENVILLE — For Jefferson County residents struggling with mental health challenges, there’s an abundance of local agencies working to help people improve their mental well-being.

Partnerships among agencies are key to ensuring community mental health services are comprehensive and effective, particularly for crisis response. Without that cooperation, problems and breakdowns would surely arise.

That’s the opinion of Andrea Dominick, chief officer for Coleman Health Services in Jefferson County. Coleman, which is contracted by the Jefferson County Prevention and Recovery Board to deliver accessible behavioral health services for community members, is a prominent provider in the county, but far from the only one.

“It takes a village,” Dominick said. “I will never tire of that adage. (Coleman alone) cannot solve, respond to or treat all of the problems that exist in Jefferson County. Thank God for Trinity East, thank God for the prevention and recovery services board, for 911 dispatch, the sheriff — the list goes on and on. I would be remiss if I did not recognize how important and vital all of these pieces and parts are to what we’re able to offer here in Jefferson County.”

With Coleman for the past four years, Dominick oversees all of the nonprofit mental health and addiction recovery organization’s services in Jefferson, Belmont, Harrison and Monroe counties. That includes case management, counseling, crisis services and psychiatry services.

Dominick is a licensed mental health counselor with expertise in addictions counseling. In addition to setting the agency’s tone and culture, Dominick will occasionally do hands-on work in Coleman’s clinical setting when staff shortages require it.

In Jefferson County, Coleman operates out of three offices in Steubenville: The St. John Professional Building at 3150 Johnson Road, the Gill House at 740 N. Sixth St. and the Beacon House at 732 N. Sixth St.

Coleman’s “most important service” is its crisis support hotline, which can be reached at any hour, every day by dialing (740) 996-7127, Dominick said. That line is available for anyone experiencing a serious mental health crisis or who’s having problems and would like to learn about services.

If a person is in crisis, Coleman professionals can respond to that person’s location and provide help, Dominick said. In-person response is available Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. After-hours calls to the crisis line would rely on EMS or law enforcement to transfer individuals to the Trinity Medical Center West emergency room, so they can obtain immediate assistance.

Coleman manages the youth-centered crisis resource Mobile Response Stabilization Services. If an individual under the age of 21 is having any sort of issue — difficulty listening to authority or poor school performance, for example — Coleman’s MRSS team can mobilize to the person’s location and link them with services. Follow-up will continue for 42 days to help the person stabilize and start on a healthy path, Dominick said.

The state mandates that the MRSS team respond within 60 minutes of a call, Dominick said. Once there, the team connects with the family, investigates the problem and works to safely maintain the child in the community.

“We live off of referrals, and many of our referrals come from the school systems themselves. They identify or notice that a youth is struggling, so they’ll call us. … We don’t want to send kids to inpatient psych, but sometimes that’s what’s very necessary. Most of the time, we would like to safety plan with them, keep them in the home, start these intensive services and get them connected to all these key players in the area.”

MRSS is a state initiative that Coleman added in October 2022, Dominick said. Coleman’s program works closely with the Jefferson County Educational Service Center’s OhioRISE as part of a wraparound care approach for children. Another state initiative, Ohio Resilience through Integrated Systems and Excellence is a Medicaid program created to help youth with complex behavioral health and multisystems needs.

Among Coleman’s typical outpatient service offerings, the agency’s Jefferson County drop-in center is a particularly fascinating one, Dominick said. Open 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday, the center allows anyone to take a shower, do their laundry, have a meal or get out of the heat or cold.

The center, which serves about 600 people a month, is attached to Coleman’s Beacon House, a 10-bed, single person living facility.

“I can’t underscore how valuable that is to the community to have that safe space for people to come,” Dominick said, noting Coleman’s additional, non-emergency housing programs.

Coleman keeps local EMS and law enforcement agencies informed about their offerings, in case professionals are needed on scene or can help through a referral, Dominick said.

“People automatically assume that mentally ill people should just go right to jail. That’s not the case. When you break a law, there are consequences, … but sometimes, when someone is in an actively psychotic episode, jail isn’t the next best option. It’s getting in touch with Coleman or getting them to Trinity so they can have a mental health evaluation and see where their next best level of care should be. So many times, it is inpatient psychiatric services.”

The community is in need of more 24/7 behavioral health amenities, Dominick said. For instance, an additional behavioral health unit would unburden Trinity West’s ER and the county jail, which tend to be overrun.

Coordinating a mobile crisis response team is another goal, Dominick said, though it faces staffing and funding hurdles. Such a goal would require the involvement of multiple agencies and funding commitments from more than just Coleman and the JCPRB, funds from which are the backbone of Coleman’s services, particularly when patients have an insurance gap.

“It is levy-funded services that they’re contracting with us to provide,” Dominick said. “We have a huge responsibility to … utilize those funds in the most judicious and appropriate manner so we can offer services like counseling, case management, psychiatry services. If we did not have that contract with the board, I really don’t know how our agency could exist for a very long period of time.”

Coleman’s programs undergo several audits every year to ensure their quality. Dominick said that proves work is getting done by “top notch employees, people of integrity.”

Dominick acknowledged the many Jefferson County providers working toward the same goal of bettering mental health in the community.

“It would be foolish to think that Coleman would be the only service to treat mentally ill persons. (Between) all of these other agencies that exist in Jefferson County, there’s enough to go around, and we should all be at the same table, getting our heads together …”

Behavioral health care, ironically, can be a mentally taxing field for workers, who are faced with cases of abuse, need and “the fragility of human life,” Dominick said. Care aims to prevent deaths and “eradicate the world of such mental anguish” — a huge undertaking.

“I just pray for a world where my job wouldn’t be needed. To know that people are so much in despair and hurting so badly, I don’t want to see that happen, and I think that’s why I do this work. I love my job, and I love the ability to journey with somebody on the road to wellness, where they don’t have to be burdened by that hurt and that pain anymore.”