The Southern Consortium for Children
Dear Friends of the SCC, It saddens me to inform you that after 21 years of dedicated service to children and families, the SCC is forced to cease operations effective June 30, 2009.  Call it a “perfect storm,” a devastating event due to the state budget dilemma, questionable policy, or the “luck of the draw,” the outcome remains the same.  I have written a detailed, if not confusing, explanation of the events forcing our closure. (See Consortium Closure Explanation" posted below.) The ten-county region will lose the following: All inpatient psychiatric hospital funding and management, especially for the non-Medicaid and non-insured child population. Planned respite services designed to prevent crises will be eliminated for the most at-risk child population. Regional psychological evaluation and assessment will not be funded. Detox services for adults will no longer be managed regionally, but may be continued by the local ADAMHS Boards. The early childhood collaborative with seven local Head Start programs will no longer be managed regionally, but may be continued per board area. Lastly, the region loses a planning and fundraising entity for children’s behavioral health that has averaged more than $1 million of “new” funding (over-and-above ODMH base funding) per year for increased service and supports for children and their families, and provided an Appalachia Ohio voice at policy-making forums both statewide and nationally. We are working hard to keep in place the Time Out Host Home Network, which has an 18 year history of serving runaway and homeless youth.  Time Out serves approximately 500 youth in crisis per year in short term foster care.  We are working with our funding agency, the Administration of Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services, to transition the program, without major changes in operations, to another local agency (yet to be determined).  We also hope to place www.teenlineohio.org with the agency who will administer Time Out.  Teenline Ohio is a website designed by teens for teens and remains an important piece of the youth safety net for the region. Efforts to sustain the Southern Ohio Telehealth Network (SOTN) are underway, as well.  The SOTN is a collaborative of four behavioral health agencies, the SCC (management and facilitation) and the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine’s Office of Information and Technology.  Together we have brought to bear the first and only comprehensive telehealth network in Ohio, which provides telepsychiatry, telepsychotherapy, distance learning, clinical supervision and much more.  The issue here is facilitation and scheduling.  We are working toward a collaborative and cost-sharing plan for network facilitation.  Also of concern is the distance learning program, the Children’s Community Support Program, a series of monthly trainings that has trained over 8,000 participants and generated over 12,000 hours of continuing education credits.  We are working with agencies to find a way to sustain this important resource (recruit trainers, scheduling and billing). We (Board of Directors) have worked hard with ODMH to find a solution.  It seems policy and state law has thwarted all attempts.  Therefore, on behalf of Amanda Conrath, Jenny Metts, Peg Meis, John Borchard, the SCC Board of Directors and myself, thank you for all the support you’ve have supplied throughout the years.  Everything the SCC has accomplished has been accomplished in collaboration with many of you! I am working hard on job opportunities for staff and have my fingers crossed.  As for me personally, I plan to retire from state service, catch my breath, and continue the often random and spontaneous actions I call “my life.”  Take care.   Steve Trout Consortium Closure Explanation The following recounts a series of events that are long and complicated, so bear with me! Brief History The Ohio Department of Mental Health (ODMH) has funded the SCC for 21 years as a result of the closure of a children’s state-operated psychiatric hospital in the mid-80s. The Department mandated regional consortia to form in order to re-direct “some” of the hospital allocation back to local communities to be used for community-based services to the severely emotionally disturbed (SED) child population. Four ADAMHS Boards formed the SCC in 1988 to become the children’s program planning, coordinating, and funding-raising entity for the 10 counties. ODMH funding has historically been used as “base-funding” for development and coordinating activities and enabled the pursuit of additional state and federal funding create or expand services and supports for the SED child population. State Fiscal Year 2010 Budget In early spring we learned the proposed Governor’s state budget saw the elimination of the ODMH 505 line item, historically the line item supporting many statewide community-based efforts and the line item in support of SCC funding. This was the first “survival” alarm, and we initiated discussion with ODMH about how to future fund the SCC. We found ODMH to be supportive of future funding, however, we were informed that any solution would mean funding would be funneled through the respective ADAMHS Boards instead of directly funding the SCC as an entity (SCC has a long history of being “direct” funded by ODMH as a Regional Council of Governments (COG)). Not long after, the House Budget restored the ODMH 505 line item making it easier to identify funding by ODMH. We received (verbally) a projected budget amount for SFY ‘10 at a reduction of over $80,000 with the funding stream still flowing through the respective local boards. The Senate version of the Budget Bill for ODMH remained consistent, not withstanding Joint Conference Committee action, to be determined. Medicaid Matching Requirements ODMH decided to fund SCC through local boards with a per capita allocation flowing to each respective board. All of the ear-marked funding is to be General Revenue Funding (GRF). Ohio passed into law a proviso mandating all GRF funding to be retained at the local level and used for Medicaid match should a local board be in, or at severe risk of Medicaid-match-default. Appalachia Ohio, for the most part, lacks local tax levies in support of behavioral health services. Our local service clientele for community behavioral health is comprised of 85% Medicaid enrollees (adult and children). As a result, there is little financial margin for successful planning and/or innovation. The "Rub" Two of the four comprising SCC Boards are already in Medicaid default. These two boards comprise approximately 55% of the total population, which means 55% of the intended SCC/ODMH allocation cannot be accessed due to Medicaid match requirements. The funding must be retained at the local level. This leaves the SCC Board of Directors no other option. The SCC will cease operations on June, 30, 2009 due to insufficient funding.