Local public entities receive Bipartisan Safer Community Grant

        The Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Seneca, Ottawa, Sandusky, and Wyandot Counties has been awarded $80,000 to enhance existing emergency preparedness and response plans to include emphasis on behavioral health response to violence and mass shootings events.
        Huron County Board of Mental Health and Addiction Services, the general health districts in Huron, Ottawa, Sandusky, Seneca and Wyandot counties, and Connections Recovery Services are grant recipients and collaborating agencies for this project.
        The funds will be utilized to integrate the Mobile Crisis Response Team and the Critical Incident Stress Management Team in each county’s emergency response plans. The partners will develop and coordinate responses in cases of violent events, including mass shootings.
        A sub-group of trained individuals who are part of the local Mobile Crisis Response Team and the Critical Incident Stress Management Team will be established to be able to be deployed rapidly and in coordination with local law enforcement agencies.
        Mircea Handru, executive director of the Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Seneca, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wyandot Counties, said, “We are very appreciative to receive these funds from the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. The funds will help enhance the local emergency and crisis infrastructure. Our goal is to develop robust local emergency plans in partnership with the local health districts in case an immediate response is needed to tragic events.
        “I am hoping that our plans will never be needed in our communities,” Handru said.
        The Bipartisan Safer Community Act (BSCA) provides state funding opportunities to address behavioral health system preparedness and community emergency preparedness. It aids in preparing responses that will offset the traumatic experiences and lingering consequences of tragedies that may happen within Ohio communities, such as natural disasters, mass shootings and other large-scale man-made, terrorist or other violent events.
        This programming ensures that behavioral health providers and professionals have a coordinated rapid response plan by establishing the necessary statewide and local partnerships, policies, procedures, and protocols that create the systemic changes necessary to immediately deploy the essential behavioral health supports and resources in the aftermath of such tragedies.