With more than $6 million already pledged, the Lindner Center of HOPE is launching a $30 million development campaign to expand facilities, staff and services.
The key areas the campaign will focus on include staff excellence and capability, expanded treatment capability, creating a state-of-the-art assessment center, and building a new wellness center.
A recent survey shows students in grades 7-12 in the region dealt with mental health struggles during the pandemic. Lindner Center President and CEO Dr. Paul Crosby says healing from the pandemic will take time and many will need professional help going forward.
"The mental health fallout from the pandemic will far outlast the deadly threat of the COVID-19 virus itself," Crosby said. "In fact, the prevailing consensus at this point is that this crisis on top of a crisis will last for at least a generation."
Crosby notes that as more people have sought out mental health treatment during the pandemic, it has led a gradual reduction of mental health stigma. The center has seen at least a 30% percent increase in calls for help.
"While today our country's many amazing first responders continue to handle the COVID cases that arrive in their emergency rooms, we are understanding in the mental health field that for many years to come, mental health providers will be the last responders of this pandemic," Crosby said.
The campaign wants to expand access by adding treatment units, patient rooms, and apartment-like housing to help people transition out of inpatient programs. Corperex chairman and Lindner Center board member Bill Butler says he's witnessed firsthand successful outcomes for patients.
"I have sponsored at least three employees and referred several other relationships in my environment and all with a high degree of success in their outcome," Butler said.
More than $6 million has already been pledged to the Transforming HOPE Campaign, including $2.5 million from Corporex, Butler and his wife, Sue, and $3.5 million from several other individual and corporate donors.
The mental health center located in Mason provides psychiatric hospitalization and partial hospitalization for individuals ages 12 and older, outpatient services for all ages, diagnostic services and short-term residential services for adults, and research.
The Lindner Center of HOPE is a financial contributor to Cincinnati Public Radio.
