Stark County Partnerships 2019-2020
Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health (C&A) has formed three partnerships in the Stark County for the 2019-2020 school calendar year. The three partnerships are with the Canton Symphony Orchestra, Leadership Stark County Youth II and Stark County District Library.
Stark County District Library
The Stark County District Library’s One Book, One Community is Beautiful Boy by David Sheff, who son’s Nic was a drug addict. One Book, One Community offers a series of programming on addiction and providing tools and strategies for parents, legal guardians and grandparents to have conversations with their children and grandchildren regarding the dangers of drug abuse.
C&A is involved in a collaborative partnership with Stark County’s other mental health agencies. Other participating agencies include Stark MHAR, CommQuest and Phoenix Rising.
C&A staff participating in scheduled events include:
- Karita Nussbaum participating in a panel discussion titled A Stark Conversation on Addiction: What you need to know as a parent
- Hannah Cowie and Deanna Hilliard did a presentation at the Plain Library on Start Talking – the state of Ohio’s initiative to provide parents tips at each age or stage of a child’s life to have open conversations with your child on drug use and addiction. Ohio’s website for this is starttalking.ohio.gov
- Author David Sheff will be speaking with teenagers in a meet-and-greet. C&A Prevention staff will be on hand to help teenagers in asking the right questions to get useful information
Leadership Stark County’s Youth Leadership Academy
C&A is partnering with Leadership Stark County’s Youth Leadership Academy to continue to bring awareness to high school students regarding mental health issues. Youth Leadership Academy (YLA) is comprised of two groups. YLA students are sophomore students from each of Stark County’s 17 school districts with two students per school participating once a month in a day of learning. Their program is modeled somewhat after the Leadership Stark County Signature Program with eight sessions. Topics of the day include an Opening Retreat, Community Impact Day, Economic Development Day, Resiliency & Healthcare Day, Diversity & Inclusion, Justice Day and Arts/Culture & History. C&A participated in the Community Impact Day. This day informed students about our services; who we serve; and ending our time with a message in a bottle make-n-take project.
There is also a second year YLA II group. These students participated in the program last year. The students received so much out of the program, they asked if the program could continue and build upon year one. The students will participate in four more in-depth program days that will include a project that they will take back to their home school and implement. C&A’s Larissa Haring talked to the group about resiliency with a rubber band exercise. Small groups were asked to discuss challenges they see at their schools centered around mental health. This list will be their starting point in identifying a project that they can implement at each school. Haring will continue to lead the discussions around mental health issues and guide the project ideas.
C&A’s Trina Miller and Leadership Stark County’s Stephanie Werren have been collaborating on this project.
Canton Symphony Orchestra
The Canton Symphony Orchestra is partnering with C&A all season to promote mental health at their concerts. At each performance, the Orchestra will be collecting school supplies for C&A students in Day Treatment.
On May 2, 2020 the Canton Symphony Orchestra will be performing a benefit concert for C&A. The featured performer is Angie Haze from the Angie Haze Project. Haze has also agreed to participate in C&A’s Collegiate Self-Care Fair on Stark County college and university campuses. She will talk about her sexual abuse as a child and how she used music to cope with her trauma.