Staff photos / Emily Scott ...Gov. Mike DeWine hugs Mahoning County Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti after the groundbreaking on a new commercial greenhouse for Flying High Youngstown at the Campus of Care in Austintown.

AUSTINTOWN — The governor was in town Wednesday to help break ground on a new addition to the Mahoning Valley Campus of Care, as well to tour a facility that will house a new state program to be run by a local organization.

The new addition will be a greenhouse for Flying High Youngstown. It will act as an extension of Flying High’s GROW (Gaining Real Opportunities for Work) Urban Farm that the nonprofit operates.

The Cadence Care Network also is on the campus and, along with its other purposes as a nonprofit, it has taken on the role of regional care partner for OhioRISE, Ohio’s first integrated program to help children who have complex and serious behavioral health needs.

The campus, which opened in 2020, is a newly renovated, multi-faceted residential and workforce training center that houses numerous agencies that include I Am Boundless Inc., Compass Family & Community Services, Alta Behavioral Healthcare, TWI (The Workshops Inc.), Flying High Inc. and Cadence Care Network.The campus formerly was the Youngstown Developmental Center.

DeWine congratulated the Mahoning Valley community on its work on the Campus of Care, which Mahoning County Commissioner Carol Rimedio-Righetti called “one of a kind” in the United States.

“This is a great day for the Mahoning Valley,” DeWine said. “What you all have accomplished here, and it’s not done, I think is a real model for the rest of the state. It would have been so easy at any point during this whole process for the county commissioners, or anyone else who’s been involved in this, to say, ‘This is just too big. We can’t take this on. This is just too much.’ But, what we see today is people who had a vision and then had the guts to carry out this vision.”

He made a promise to stay involved in and committed to this project and in the work being done for behavioral health in the Mahoning Valley.

NEW GREENHOUSE

The GROW Urban Farm employs those who have barriers to employment to give them work experience to acclimate them to the real-world work environment, which makes other businesses more likely to hire them. The farm’s produce goes to the Mahoning Valley Mobile Market, restaurants, food pantries and farm co-ops.

The greenhouse, as an extension of the farm, will provide produce for the mobile market and for meals for children in Head Start. It will be located at Campus of Care, alongside a building that Flying High already owns and operates, called Access Healthy Foods Mahoning County. The building houses a commercial kitchen, which Jeff Magada, founder and CEO of Flying High, said makes 180,000 meals per year for Head Start, and is where the nonprofit stores the produce and goods for the mobile market.

“When you involve growing with therapy and people actually put their hands in the dirt, you are really addressing two needs,” Magada said. “You are aiding in therapeutic recovery and increasing food access for those in food deserts.”

Youngstown was named a food desert in 2017, which means a significant number of residents do not have a grocery store within a mile of their residence, nor do they have adequate transportation to get to a full-service grocery store.

The construction of the greenhouse will begin early next month and should be completed by the end of January 2023. Magada said the greenhouse is possible only because of the existence of Campus of Care.

OHIORISE

In February, the Ohio Department of Medicaid announced the 20 regional care partners, or care management entities, that were tasked with launching OhioRISE, resilience though integrated systems and excellence. The program features intensive care coordination, new and enhanced behavioral health services and offers a new Medicaid waiver program that will help families prevent custody relinquishment.

The Cadence Care Network is the care management entity for Trumbull and Mahoning counties. CEO Matt Kresic said the nonprofit had already been doing some of this work, so the transition was easy because the relationships needed already were formed, especially with children services agencies in each county.

He said about 2,400 children in the Valley will be eligible for the services, and DeWine said 50,000 will be eligible statewide.

“We’re trying to do something in Ohio that should have been done a long time ago,” DeWine said. “And that is to make sure that people with mental health challenges and their families have access to care and can get that care in their community.”

Those eligible for the program must be eligible for Medicaid, under 21 years old and require significant behavioral health treatment, according to state guidelines.

Nikunj Patel, chief of the Cadence Care Network, said the nonprofit has about 20 people on staff now, and will hire 100 more to take on its new role with OhioRISE. These staff members are in the process of being hired and will operate mostly out of Cadence’s Campus of Care location. DeWine toured this facility Wednesday.

“The concept of care coordination is new to a lot of people,” Patel said.

In that concept, one individual becomes the point person for a child’s behavioral health care. That person would communicate with multiple people in the child’s life to ensure everyone is on the same page, and individualized care can be accomplished, he said.

DeWine said this new program will not happen overnight, but it has started statewide.

escott@tribtoday.com