Our Center presented its 2012 Champion Awards to three organizations that have demonstrated an unwavering commitment to implementing EBPs and improving access to quality care in their communities. The organizations are Greater Cincinnati Behavioral Health Services (EBP Champion); Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Stark County (IDDT Champion); and Cleveland Sight Center (SE/IPS Champion).

Shawnee Mental Health Center in Portsmouth, Ohio has teamed up with the Center for Evidence-Based Practices at Case Western Reserve University to develop one of the first planning and evaluation instruments in the United States that helps organizations integrate primary and behavioral healthcare for people with severe mental illness. Shawnee is using the new Integrated Treatment Tool to develop and improve primary care facilities and services in its three-county service area. This initiative is funded by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The North Dakota Department of Human Services has been calling upon Ohio's expertise in the implementation of evidence-based practices for people with co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders since 2006. Today, outcomes from the department's data analyses show that the use of Integrated Dual Disorder Treatment has been significantly reducing crisis services, psychiatric hospitalizations, incarcerations, and more.

Times are especially good for NEIGHBORING's Chief Operating Officer Ken Gill and his Integrated Dual Disorder Treatment (IDDT) team as they are being recognized for raising the standard of exceptional care in Lake County. Gill reflects upon the challenges of implementing IDDT, offers some advice, and shares two stories of consumer recovery. (Part 2 of 4 of an agency profile).

Deana Leber-George is program supervisor and team leader of Integrated Dual Disorder (IDDT) services at Neighboring, a provider of mental-health and substance-abuse services in Mentor, Ohio. She reflects upon lessons learned during implementation of IDDT, provides advice for other supervisors and team leaders, and shares two stories of consumer recovery. (Part 3 of 4 of an agency profile).

The Shawnee Mental Health Center not only serves three of the poorest, most rural regions in Ohio-Lawrence, Scioto, and Adams counties-with mental health and tobacco recovery services, but it also lies in the heart of tobacco country, making the notion of kicking the habit seem less doable than flicking a cigarette butt across the Ohio River.