Mental health care is unique in that state and local governments finance and manage a distinct health care system for people with mental illness. This public system serves as a safety net, providing care for the uninsured and compensating for inadequate benefits in commercial health insurance plans. Most Ohioans have some insurance coverage for mental illness, but only five percent of policies will cover the costs of serious, crippling cases of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or depression. People with severe cases of these conditions often end up disabled, poor and dependent on the public system. Each year, Ohio’s community mental health systems provide services to more than 300,000 people.

Ohio’s public mental health system includes the Ohio Department of Mental Health (ODMH), 50 county and multi-county boards, and nearly 500 community mental health agencies. The boards, which in most cases oversee both mental health and addiction services, do not directly provide services. They act as local mental health authorities, funding, planning, monitoring and purchasing services provided by private agencies and the Behavioral Healthcare Organizations (BHOs) operated by ODMH. This approach, which emphasizes local management and control, generates strong citizen involvement and local financial support for mental health services.

Vision

Ohio will be a community of mentally healthy people who lead fulfilling and productive lives. It will be a caring community with strong compassion for, and a determination to respond effectively and respectfully to, the needs of all citizens with mental illness and behavioral disorders.

Mission

The mission of Ohio's mental health system is to establish mental health as a cornerstone of health in Ohio, and ensure that quality mental health care is available to all Ohioans at all stages of life.

Major ODMH Responsibilities

1. Support and monitor local systems of care.

The Department funds, reviews and monitors community mental health programs coordinated by 50 county-level boards serving all 88 counties. ODMH also reviews and certifies services provided by private agencies and licenses private psychiatric hospital inpatient units and community residential programs.

2. Provide quality inpatient services.

The state’s responsibility to provide hospital care is defined in Ohio’s constitution. Formerly focused on long-term institutionalization, state hospitals have become small and specialized facilities providing short-term and intensive treatment as requested by local systems. They also provide care to patients committed by criminal courts.

The Department’s five Behavioral Healthcare Organizations (BHOs) provide intensive inpatient treatment at nine campuses across the state. All ODMH facilities are fully accredited by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations with scores that rival those of private hospitals. The newest medications are available to patients, and the most effective treatment modalities are being shared through a “Best Practices” approach to providing care.

3. Provide quality community services.

Community Support Networks (CSNs), under which staff from the Department’s BHOs work for local mental health boards to provide care, were created to ease the hospital downsizing process during implementation of the 1988 Mental Health Act. CSNs provide local systems with well-qualified staff to care for people with serious mental illness and have grown to include 400 staff who provide services to approximately 3,500 people annually.

4. Improve mental health services to children and adolescents.

The U.S. Surgeon General reports one in five children and adolescents experience the signs and symptoms of a diagnosable mental disorder each year, resulting in significant disruptions of school classrooms, increased truancy, increased risk for alcohol and drug abuse and decreased graduation rates. Children with serious emotional disorders have worse outcomes than children with other handicapping conditions.

The Department supports local mental health boards’ efforts to assist schools with services to children with emotional and behavioral challenges, including consultation services to Head Start and other early childhood settings; Red Flags, a depression awareness program available to middle schools; and mental health prevention and intervention efforts in Alternative Schools.

5. Improve mental health linkages to the criminal justice system.

The interface between the mental health and criminal justice systems is significant. More than half of the patients in ODMH hospitals are referred by criminal courts, and the treatment and risk-management of these individuals is a high priority. Though it no longer provides mental health services to inmates in state correctional facilities, the Department's Office of Forensic Services continues to link inmates with community mental health services upon release.

ODMH is also working with judges, jails and community mental health providers on programs to divert non-violent offenders to treatment instead of expensive incarceration, and to link jail inmates with appropriate supports and treatment upon release.

6. Provide quality support services.

The Office of Support Services (OSS) is a unique $85 million business within ODMH. OSS supplies state institutional agencies, select community mental health agencies and other non-profit customers with pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, food products and housekeeping supplies. Items are purchased at deep, bulk discounts for the customers who work as a cooperative to get favorable prices. OSS is funded entirely by the sale of its products and services to its customers.