OhioGuidestone opens second office in Family Center

FINDLAY — The Family Center is now home to a second location of OhioGuidestone, which provides behavioral health services. A special focus is working with pregnant and post-partum mothers through the MOMS (Maternal Opiate Medical Support) program. These services focus on the individual as well as family members to make sure everyone receives the support they need, said Victoria Graham, regional director of operations overseeing the services of the comprehensive behavioral and mental health services provider in Lucas, Wood and Hancock counties. The two-room office in suite 102 is working out well, she said. "We wanted it to feel for the mom like a home away from home," said Graham. "We tried to make it feel not so much like a doctor's office." The outer reception area features artwork, a colorful rug, flower pillows, toys, books and artwork. Private appointments are held in the second room. "We've received a lot more referrals since moving into the Family Center, and we think it's gives a lot more visibility to the program," said Graham. OhioGuidestone's main office is at 1624 Tiffin Ave. Graham said the agency was able to open a second location with support from the Hancock County Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board. "So we've been running a MOMS program at OhioGuidestones. It's a collaboration we do with Blanchard Valley Hospital," she said. The hospital's MOMS program started in 2018 for Hancock County women and is focused on working with moms who are pregnant or postpartum, she said. Graham said the program really came about during the opiate epidemic as a way to assist pregnant women who might need medication-assisted treatment and to make sure they're getting all the wraparound services they need. Jen Loera, who works at Blanchard Valley Hospital, is the nurse navigator for that program. "And she does a meeting where she works with them, she works with OB, she kind of coordinates all the different systems," Graham said. OhioGuidestone is one of the providers for the program, she noted. "The whole program is of her navigating and finding all of these resources. She works so closely with the moms to understand their needs and how their needs are changing," said Graham. "Since it started to now, is there something different that we need to look at? Is there an unmet need?" Graham said OhioGuidestone wanted to be involved for the medication-assisted treatment piece. "And from the start, we've always had this dream of how do we have our services be in one place to be able to limit the amount of places, especially for a new mom traveling? And it's always just been trying to figure out where is the right place," she said. A neutral location was needed, said Graham. "It always kept coming back to the Family Center being the one-stop shop for the community," she said. "It really made sense to do it here." Along with medication-assisted treatment, OhioGuidestone offers a full range of behavioral health services including counseling services, group services and individual case management, psychiatric medication management and medication-assisted treatment. Peer support was recently added as well. "That hasn't always been part of the program but we now have a peer support specialist who has been a mom herself that was involved in the program and wanted to work with the women," Graham said. They're now working on getting awareness of the program out in public. "We're really focusing on the whole person with it and saying we also want to make sure we're taking care of their mental health as well as the family members and anybody else that's affected by this," she said. "We know that it is a need that really affects so many different people." Stigma is another area they're working on, she added. "As we're getting word out to the community, we want to have people understand there is so much stigma with 'I'm a mother and pregnant, and I've had issues with substance use or mental health.' We want to really normalize that you're getting help for that. That's what's really the wonderful thing here. Everybody could use support," she said. Caitlin Schissler, clinical supervisor for OhioGuidestone, oversees the MOMS program for the agency in Findlay. For more information, check the website at https://ohioguidestone.org.