Center will support behavioral health programs

CLEVELAND — Ohio will create a statewide center that will offer support to child and adolescent behavioral health programs and agencies, including providing services to keep children out of foster care.

Ohio’s Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health “Center of Excellence” will offer training and technology and administrative services, including increased access to government support through telehealth.

Multiple departments, including Job and Family Services and the Mental Health and Addiction Services, created the request for qualified contractors to help develop the center.

Ohio is working on multiple statewide programs to reform its child care and protection system, including implementing the Family First Prevention Services Act, which offers services to keep children with families and out of foster care, and OhioRISE, a program through Ohio Medicaid that assists families with children who have high behavioral health needs.

By having this central support system, Ohio can make sure its initiatives are progressing and that the state has the capacity to expand behavioral health services. The center will also develop an assessment system to make sure programs are effective.

Case Western Reserve University’s Center for Innovative Practices, through a $3.6 million contract, will organize the creation and operations. The contract runs for two years. Run through the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education in the university’s applied social sciences school, the Center for Innovative Practices offers training on behavior health services.

“Case Western Reserve University’s Center for Innovative Practices has decades of experience and is highly-qualified to develop, manage and oversee the work of the new Center,” Mental Health and Addiction Services Director Lori Criss said in a release.