MINDPEACE
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Mission Statement
MindPeace's mission is to ensure a seamless system of mental health care for children and adolescents that meets specific characteristics of quality, provides a continuum of care, has system connections, and is affordable. Early on, we discovered that the best way to connect students to care was to offer quality brain health support in schools. This is when MindPeace’s school-based initiative was born. By offering services during the school day, transportation and busy family schedules are no longer significant barriers to care, and students benefit from an integrated approach where students, families, school staff and therapists work together as a team. School-based therapy also offers students the opportunity to more readily address issues as they arise in a setting where they feel comfortable, while providing therapists with a helpful context of each student’s life within their respective school environment. Importantly, this model encourages therapists to team up with teachers and parents to ultimately improve mental health outcomes for each child. MindPeace’s vision is for the Greater Cincinnati region to have a well-integrated public and private system to assure the mental wellness of children and adolescents, and to leverage the lessons we’ve learned over the past 20+ years to partner with school systems outside our region to improve youth access to mental health services. We envision a future where every child and teen, regardless of race, gender, and socioeconomic factors, receives the support they need, and where, in our society, seeking mental health services becomes as commonplace as going to the pediatrician.
About This Cause
More than 50% of all lifetime mental illness cases start at age 14, with an additional 25% starting by age 24. Yet despite the proven effectiveness of mental health treatment, the average person continues to suffer in silence, waiting an average of 8-10 years after the initial onset of symptoms to seek intervention (NAMI’s Mental Health by Numbers: Children and Teens report, 2014). MindPeace’s school-based mental health model changes this story. MindPeace began as a project of the Junior League of Cincinnati (JLC) in 2002 after members recognized a record number of local youth quietly struggling with mental health issues, often without the proper care and support. To answer the call for an improved pediatric system of mental health care, hundreds of JLC volunteers worked alongside Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and many other community partners to develop a model for connecting local children and adolescents with the brain health services they need and deserve. In 2007, at the request of key community stakeholders and providers, the JLC launched MindPeace as its own non-profit, because no other mental health organization focused on systemic improvements to children's mental health access and quality. Fast forward to the 2021-2022 School Year when, as part of MindPeace’s network of school-based mental health partnerships, more than 131,000 local students had access to critical brain health services. Young people are more likely to seek mental health support when it’s available on their school’s campus (Nabors, Lee & Mettrick, 2001). Typically, in community and outpatient settings across the country, 50% of patients referred to care actually receive care. Through MindPeace’s Network of school-based partners, 72% of those referred to care in the 2021-2022 school year received treatment, (Note: This does not include 7 schools without therapist coverage, whose families were working with MindPeace for community-based referrals.) This access-to-care percentage is especially impressive given the continuation of COVID-19 pandemic this past year, coupled with our current workforce shortage-turned-crisis. Measurement is a cornerstone of MindPeace’s school-based program – both for the purpose of ensuring positive outcomes and to aid us in identifying possible barriers. Throughout our network, underlying data is collected annually to help providers improve services offered. Additional outcomes from the MindPeace Network during the 2021-2022 school year include: * Over 250 mental health professionals were integrated in schools at no cost to schools through the leveraging of existing mental health resources. * More than 25,338 total hours of prevention support were provided to students, parents and staff at no cost to schools. This also included training, planning, crisis support and consultation to school staff. * And most notably, 8,651 students were connected to school-based mental health treatment or case management, and 487 students were connected with community-based treatment options through school-based referrals. Without MindPeace and our partners, extensive school-based mental health services would not be available, and access to care would be significantly less. Additionally, there would be no infrastructure of communication across our community for crisis support, quality improvement or shared learning. This infrastructure of communication has been especially critical in recent years as schools and behavioral health agencies have continuously pivoted to meet unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and our current mental health workforce crisis.