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The Counseling Center of Wayne and Holmes Counties
Making a difference in our community since 1953. |
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Annual Report FY2011 |
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARYJULY 2010 - JUNE 2011
by Susan D. Buchwalter, Ph.D. President/CEO
The Counseling Center is a private, not-for-profit corporation that provides a comprehensive range of behavioral health services to a wide variety of community residents. Governed by a 12-member Board of Directors, the organization has been in operation for nearly 60 years.
The main office is located on Benden Drive in Wooster; but the agency operates out of nine locations across the Wayne and Holmes county area. These locations include five residential sites.
Many of the services provided by the Center are specifically purchased by the Mental Health and Recovery Board (MHRB), and provided to those individuals with either limited resources or with more severe or persistent problems. Other parts of the Center’s service array are targeted toward those with more acute conditions and are funded with a combination of public dollars and private revenue from insurance, Medicare and the clients themselves.
The FY11 operating budget was approximately $6.3 million.
The Center is certified by the Ohio Department of Mental Health and operates two residential facilities licensed by the Ohio Department of Health. All services are nationally accredited by CARF. In addition, the Center serves as a qualified local provider for a number of regional and national health insurance companies.
FY11 clients ranged in age from under 5 to over 85 with 25% of the total group being children or youth and 4% representing senior citizens. Ninety-six percent of the clients were of Caucasian background and 4% were minorities which is similar to the population of the service area. Two percent were Amish.
Although client incomes ranged from zero to well over $75,000, nearly 60% reported household incomes that were low enough that they qualified for care that was fully subsidized by the MHRB and clearly indicating that they would not be able to afford mental health services if it were not for the Center and its sliding fee scale.
The Center’s mission, as approved the Board of Directors in 2011, states that the organization
“promotes and enhances the mental health of individuals, families and groups through a comprehensive range of prevention, rehabilitation and treatment services, designed to meet individual needs.”
In the recently completed fiscal year, the Center made significant strides toward that mission. Some of the Center’s efforts in each area are summarized below.
PREVENTION SERVICES
Prevention services at the Center include such activities as suicide prevention, early childhood mental health consultation, specialized programs for parents who are divorcing, support groups for families with a mentally ill relative, school-based services, family support services, and specialized training or education on a variety mental health issues.
In FY11, the Center’s prevention programs:
· reached approximately 4,700 individuals with some type of mental health consultation, education or prevention service
· touched over 1,000 adolescents in local high schools and middle schools with depression awareness and suicide prevention programs and specifically screened 274 students for depression, identifying 5 students who reported thinking seriously about killing themselves and 6 who reported actually attempting suicide in the last year
· provided information or educational presentations on mental health to over 600 persons
· assisted other community professionals in dealing with the mental health needs of their own clients by providing 629 hours of consultation
· reached 346 divorcing parents with an educational program designed to reduce the impact of divorce on their children. Ninety-four percent of the participants subsequently described the course as good, very good or excellent and 93% reported learning helpful strategies for dealing with their children
· provided early childhood mental health consultation to local childcare centers in which no students were subsequently removed due to unresolved behavioral difficulties.
· presented an intensive evidence-based parenting program to parents with an out of control adolescent after which the parents reported a statistically significant improvement in their child’s ability to get along in the family, control their emotions and stay out of trouble
· facilitated a support group specifically for Amish families with a mentally ill family member and a children’s group for Amish children with a mentally ill parent
· located school-based therapists in four local school systems, resulting in a reported decrease in problem severity, an increase in level of functioning, and with the vast majority of the students passing their classes and being promoted
· provided paraprofessional family support aides to clients referred by the Family and Children First Councils in both Holmes County and in Wayne County to assist in maintaining school attendance and family stability. At the end of the year, 100% of the students in the Holmes County program avoided out-of-home placement
TREATMENT SERVICES
Treatment services provided by the Center include: individual and family counseling, medication assessment and monitoring, crisis intervention, and diagnostic assessment. Counseling is provided at offices located in Wooster, Rittman, Orrville, and Millersburg and is available for adults, children, adolescents, families, and couples. Typical problems include depression, anxiety, child behavioral difficulties, marital distress, interpersonal problems, and sexual or physical abuse. Crisis intervention services are available 24-hours a day and focus on short-term intervention, suicide prevention, screening for possible hospitalization and referral to other appropriate services. Assessment services are provided to every person who seeks ongoing assistance from the Center; and, at times, to other organizations or individuals who have a specific need. Medication is provided to clients who need this additional support to deal with their current symptoms.
In FY11, the Center’s treatment programs:
· provided a diagnostic assessment to 1,588 different individuals who sought on-going mental health services – an increase of 12% over the prior year
· provided individual counseling/psychotherapy to 2,047 clients
· intervened with 1,488 different persons who contacted the Center for crisis intervention and assisted with 554 public or private psychiatric hospital admissions
· provided psychiatric assessment and access to psychotropic medication to a total of 1,695 different clients
· accessed over $500,000 in actual medication or indigent medication program assistance to help clients who could not otherwise afford their medications
REHABILITATION SERVICES
The Center’s rehabilitation services are designed to assist those adults and children in the community who are affected with more severe and persistent mental health problems. Specific services offered in FY11 included: community support services (which focus on helping clients to live successfully in the community), home-based family intervention and residential care.
In FY11 the Center’s rehabilitation programs:
· provided 67,590 units of community psychiatric support to adults with severe mental illness, and an additional 15,5483 units to children or youth
· served over 1,098 adults with severe mental illness and 308 children with severe emotional disturbance, as classified by the Ohio Department of Mental Health
· achieved excellent customer satisfaction in programs targeted to severely emotionally disturbed children with 100% of those who received home-based services or community psychiatric support rating their services as good, very good, or excellent. Ninety-seven percent of the adult program clients were similarly satisfied
· determined that families involved in the home-based services program achieved statistically significant improvement in the behavior and symptoms of the children involved in the program
OTHER SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS
In addition to the specific program accomplishments noted above, the Center also
· provided 173,106 units of mental health care – an increase of 4% over the prior year
· managed 3,972 different cases and maintained an active caseload of nearly 2,700 per month
· processed 2,233 admissions – an average of 186 per month, compared to 161 per month in the previous year.
· ended the year with operating revenue over operating expense
· completed a referral source satisfaction survey in which 92% rated their satisfaction with the Center as good, very good, or excellent, exceeding the national average
· documented statistically significant change in system distress and quality of life for adults who used Center services; and statistically significant change in problem severity and level of functioning for children and youth, as measured by the Ohio Department of Mental Health Outcomes system
· implemented a number of quality improvement initiatives including reducing errors on staff time sheets, improving consultation within the counseling program, updating manuals for the Incredible Years programs, promoting awareness of crisis services among medical professionals, and developing protocols for use in the various residential programs
· completed a client satisfaction survey in which 93% rated their overall service satisfaction as good, very good or excellent; 88% reported that services were helping them deal with their problems; and 96% indicated that they would refer others to the Center
· administered a staff satisfaction survey in which 96% rated the Counseling Center as a good place to work
· successfully renewed and/or maintained the organization’s residential licensure from the Ohio Department of Mental Health and the Ohio Department of Health
· implemented a document imaging system which allows for scanning material into the electronic records system, reducing the need for paper copies and reducing filing time
· began, on a pilot basis, to electronically submit claims to insurance companies, thus reducing billing errors and speeding payment
· re-established an employment services program which was previously closed due to budget reductions
SPECIAL CHALLENGES
While the Center experienced significant clinical success during the year, the agency also faced a number of difficult challenges as noted below:
· ten of the 17 specific services offered by the Center failed to meet their expected annual productivity targets due family/medical leaves of absence and difficulty in recruiting appropriately trained replacements for staff who left the agency. This loss was especially troublesome in the psychiatric services area where a full-time prescribing professional position was vacant for a number of months
· key services continued to have a waiting list which ranged from 192 to 371 and averaged 254 persons – more than triple what the waiting list was just five years ago
SUMMARY
Despite the challenges of significant service demand, increased administrative requirements and the constantly changing health care environment, the Center continues as a positive and dynamic organization, committed to providing quality mental health care and excellent customer service to the residents of Wayne and Holmes counties.
Outcome measures and customer satisfaction surveys reflect that the individuals who use the Center are positively impacted in their lives – whether their problems are short-term and acute, requiring only limited intervention, or long-term and chronic with ongoing needs for rehabilitation and support.
(SDB- 8.11)
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