YOUNGSTOWN — The number of suicides in Mahoning County is down, officials say, but it’s still too high, and a recent tragedy at a local hospital only highlights the need for more and better resources.

September is Suicide Prevention and Awareness month and this week is national Suicide Prevention Week. Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board Executive Director Duane Piccirilli wants county residents to be aware of the resources available to them while he and Mahoning County Prosecutor Lynn Maro also want to draw attention to the gaps in the system.

The most important thing for everyone to know, Piccirilli said, is that anyone can call the 24 / 7 Crisis Response Hotline at 988 — be it a person suffering from suicidal ideations or their loved ones. And he said there are many local agencies and facilities that provide care.

“We have Compass (Family and Community Services) and Meridian (Healthcare) and Valley (Counseling Services) that receive levy dollars and people can go and receive counseling,” he said. “Compass has a crisis unit that’s a step down from the hospital, and that gives them the support they need to transition back into the community. And for young people we have Alta Behavioral Health.”

Of course there is always the emergency room as well, Piccirilli said.

“The Mental Health and Recovery Board has partnered with Mercy Health, and we placed a mental health navigator and pre-screeners there,” he said. “The mental health navigator, they make sure the person is assigned to an agency or provider for follow up before they are discharged, or if they’re coming from or to the state hospital, she oversees the transitions.”

The county also works with Mercy and Direction Home of Eastern Ohio to provide an adult navigator to work with people 65 and under to determine what they need, if they need counseling or hospitalization or other care.

He said Mercy also soon will build a larger mental health facility in Liberty that will be available for all Mahoning Valley residents.

And Piccirilli said the county has seen some success with its efforts. From January to August, 15 fewer people completed suicide than the same time period in 2024.

“That’s down from 41 people the year before but that’s still 26 families that are going to have a very different Christmas,” he said.

Piccirilli said the top demographic in the county is older men — down from 10 cases in 2024 to six this year. Three of the suicide cases were veterans, and three were children under 13. The oldest victim was 80.

But Maro and Piccirilli agree that the county is not doing nearly enough. Speaking at Thursday’s commissioners meeting, Maro said the recent suicide at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital emergency room shows how easy it is for a person to fall through the cracks.

“He was an individual who was in our mental health program, who reached out, who followed the protocol to try to get help, when he realized his medication wasn’t working right anymore or something was wrong. And there was no place for him. They turned him away at one hospital, and the next day he comes to the next one,” she said.

“He was in our mental health court, he was counseled on what to do if he felt things weren’t going right, and he did it, and he was turned away. So I’m sorry, that’s not doing the best you can, when you have someone show up at your doorstep saying ‘I need help.’ He was a veteran, he was a father, and everybody should be outraged at what happened to him last week.

In the second facility, when he came back again, is when he took his own life.”

Maro and Piccirilli said the incident highlights the need for a different kind of facility than what the county already has available.

And Maro said she’s well past the point of frustration with the lack thereof.

“We’ve had enough meetings, we’ve had enough discussions. It’s been 25 years in our criminal justice system of this crisis, and we need a lockdown facility in Mahoning County where our courts can send individuals with mental needs,” she said. “They don’t belong in our county jail, they don’t belong in our state prisons. They belong in a facility where they can get help and assistance, and last week’s tragic events epitomize what our lack of attention to this issue has caused in our community.”

Maro and Piccirilli said the Mahoning County jail right now is the top provider of services for people in the legal system with mental health issues. While they give Sheriff Jerry Greene credit for doing a stellar job, Maro said the jail is a place for incarceration, not for providing critical mental health services for people navigating the legal system.

She also did not pull punches in calling for more state support.

“How long has Gov. (Mike) DeWine been in office?” she asked. “He has had plenty of time to work on it. I’m sorry, but I’m tired of committees and meetings and things not getting done. If it’s a priority for him, it would have been done.”

Maro said the county’s options without its own dedicated lockdown facility are limited.

“What we’re doing right now, is if someone is found not competent, we ship them out of the county to a mental health facility where they stay weeks and months getting the treatment they need, but that can only happen if they’re found not competent.” she said. “We don’t have a place for individuals that are competent, meaning they can understand the nature of what they did, they can participate in their defense, but they still have mental health issues. Those people are falling through the gap.”

Maro credited Piccirilli for the board’s efforts to make such a facility a reality, but Piccirilli said that while he’s making progress, it is no easy task.

“We’re working really hard to have a locked facility in Mahoning County,” he said. “Because of the law, you just can’t lock a crisis unit. But we’re trying to build a small psychiatric hospital in the county. The commissioners have been on board from the beginning, my board is on board, we’re working with a developer. We’re just looking for a location.”

On Wednesday, at the Campus of Care at 2 p.m., the MCMHRB will host an event honoring those who have died from suicide and those who survived.