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For those seeking assistance with mental health struggles, either for themselves or for their loved ones, Butler County is home to a variety of options. From support during an immediate crisis, to long-term recovery and treatment, to assistance and community for patients and their families, a number of different organizations provide services for a continuum of care.

At the Grapevine Center in Butler, services focus on recovery after mental health issues.

“It’s open to anybody, but we do a lot of activities and structure things that focus on mental health recovery and well-being,” said Richard Blews, director of peer support, housing engagement specialist and moving coordinator at the center. “It’s a pretty wide variety of folks we get down here. That's been a real goal coming off of COVID, is really pushing back into the community and being involved, and getting awareness out that recovery is real and possible.”

Located at 140 N. Elm St in Butler, the drop-in center is open to anyone. The Grapevine also operates a peer support program, matching those seeking assistance with a trained peer specialist who has gone through similar experiences.

“Peer support providers are individuals who live with mental health — they have really overcome a lot of those barriers and those difficulties, and now they are in the position to share with others to help them with the barriers they are encountering,” Blews said. “It’s a really nice program, and is definitely becoming more and more utilized within our state and especially our county as well.”

The Grapevine Center works primarily with individuals over age 18, but can provide peer support matches of various ages within that range.

“Young ladies in their 20s, I put with a certified peer specialist who is in their 20s or early 30s. Someone in their 40s and maybe a mom, we have moms on staff,” Blews said. “We look at all those factors when matching them up.”

For anyone in need of mental health assistance, Blews recommends taking that first step to ask for help.

"I know from personal experience that I was afraid to ask for help. There are plenty of people put into places in our area to help and get where people need to be,” he said. “That’s the hugest thing. I know for people with mental health especially, it’s the real stigma and being judged to ask for help. People are afraid to ask. But we have a lot of help to offer.”

At MHY Family Serivces in Adams Township, a new therapy program – Multisystemic Therapy-Psychiatric Care, or MST-Psych – is now available to assist families and youth dealing with severe mental health issues. The program brings a team of therapists and treatment professionals inside the home instead of requiring a child to go elsewhere for treatment, and involves the family in that treatment process.

“This model addresses the very highly acute youth, who are demonstrating severe psychiatric issues, the youth who would normally need to be hospitalized or go into out-of-home treatment, like a group home or a treatment facility,” said Amy Smith, director of development and program advancement at MHY Family Services. “We are able to take a therapist and a team inside the home and work with the entire family in order to stabilize and treat those psychiatric issues. It’s been proven to reduce the need for hospitalization, out-of-home placement, and repeat services.”

The team is typically made up of a therapist, a crisis case worker, a supervisor and a psychiatrist, who are all able to work with the child and the family within the home.

“What families would typically have to do is all of these are individual types of services, and they’d need to go from station to station,” said Lukas Carothers, director of community-based services. “This program combines all of those different features, so they provide a suite of services rather than individual services that can take months and weeks for families to wait on to be able to see somebody.”

By working with youth within their homes, Smith hopes the program will help reduce stress for children and make sure that families don’t fall through the cracks. The program is a first-of-its-kind in Butler County.

“We see this as ultimately a cost-savings to our counties, because the cost of out-of-home services is so high and limited,” Smith said. “We also see this as reducing trauma for a child who would otherwise need to leave home. That event can be scary, when you’re in distress already.”

At the Butler County branch of the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), support groups and classes are available for the families of those experiencing mental health difficulties.

“They can discuss the things that are going on. It’s kind of like, for people who have alcohol problems, going to (Alcoholics Anonymous),” said Joyce Saunders, president of the board of NAMI Butler. “They can share experiences and find out that they are not alone, and sometimes find out about the different medications that are available.”

The center offers a class called “Family to Family” for about eight weeks each year. The class starts on Sept. 21, and those interested can call NAMI Butler to register.

“If a person feels that they have a family member who is exhibiting conditions that seem to be a mental health condition, and they’re concerned about it, they certainly can attend the class,” she said. “We do talk to the people who sign up for it ahead of time to make sure it’s the right class for them.”

At Glade Run Lutheran Services, a wide variety of treatment programs are available, said president/CEO Steven Green.

“There’s a list of services, from case management to the most intense service we offer on the youth side is partial hospitalization services,” Green said. “Partial hospitalization is on-site in Zelienople, and that is our most intense level of care currently on our continuum. It goes from case management as the least intense to partial hospitalization being the most intense, in terms of frequency and duration.”

Butler County has a deep pool of resources for those who need them, Green added.

“I’ve worked in social services for 28 years now, going on 29, and Butler County is one of the best counties to work in in terms of collaboration with other providers, and with the county entity,” he said. “Our county administrators and our county human services are the best in the state in terms of managing their network of mental health providers.”

Butler County Human Services helps tie all of the programs in the county together and coordinate among them, said Marni Rettig, Butler County Human Services mental health director.

“We provide a lot of coordination and oversight for the county programs,” she said. “We don’t implement any of the programs ourselves, but we make sure we have a network of services and support for the community to access.”

At Glade Run, the organization also works within local school districts like Butler Area and Seneca Valley to provide therapy services.

“We work with those districts to put therapists assigned to each building within their district to make sure kids' mental health needs are being met,” Green said. “COVID has created a lot of stress on a lot of people and systems in general. That stress and that trauma has affected people’s ability and systems’ ability to react to needs, because we’re focused on other things. I think we’re starting to get back to being able to address some of the students that are in need and have mental health concerns. It’s just a gigantic effort.”