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With another school year underway, the Mahoning Valley feels a renewed sense of possibility. Students are back in classrooms, families are settling into their workday routines, and communities are looking ahead. But for too many parents, grandparents, siblings, friends and neighbors, the sense of renewal that comes each autumn also brings a quiet heartache, because it reminds them of individuals young and old who should be celebrating next steps in life but whose futures were instead cut short by substance use disorder.
These deaths and their impact on the community are why my service representing Mahoning and Trumbull counties on the OneOhio Recovery Foundation Board is so deeply personal to me. The Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization charged by state leaders with helping distribute Ohio's opioid settlement funds to advance substance-use prevention, treatment and recovery efforts on a local level.
I have spent much of my career working with people and families facing mental illness and substance use disorder, through crisis and referral services and now at the Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board. This work has taught me people need help they can find quickly, close to home, and without judgment.
The newest OneOhio awards give Mahoning and Trumbull counties' response by supporting local prevention, treatment and recovery efforts. These settlement dollars turn loss into action and help people find support before it is too late.
This round includes $250,000 to Coleman Professional Services to expand its crisis center into a 24/7 walk-in facility, $215,000 to support the Mahoning County Sheriff's Office Enhanced Medication-Assisted Treatment Program, $188,000 to the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition to help employers support workers in recovery and $86,000 to Youngstown Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Program for substance use prevention. These are among 14 grants totaling nearly $1.87 million that will strengthen prevention, treatment and recovery across Mahoning and Trumbull counties.
These grants provide real, much-needed help to people close to home. They are targeted to help local organizations reach more families, strengthen prevention and make it easier for someone in recovery to keep moving forward after taking the first step.
The grants continue work that started with earlier OneOhio awards in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, supporting recovery housing for women and children, youth prevention, harm reduction, housing repairs, workforce development, peer recovery support and other services that help people stay connected to recovery. That variety of support matters because substance use disorder finds a way to affect health, education, work, housing and family life all at once.
And it's now, at the start of a school year, that prevention deserves our special attention. Children need more than a warning about drugs. They need trusted adults, steady relationships, mental health support, honest conversations and reasons to believe their future is worth protecting. When prevention is done well, it gives young people tools to protect themselves before a crisis begins.
The same is true for adults, because a person in recovery may need treatment, but also housing, transportation, employment support, counseling, family connection and time to heal. A community response must be broad enough to meet those needs without making people start over at every door.
Future funding rounds will give organizations the chance to bring forward additional ideas; and that matters because substance use disorder keeps changing. What should not change is our commitment to local solutions, careful spending and real results.
This new school year reminds us how much promise every life holds. These OneOhio grants help protect that promise by strengthening the people and programs already doing difficult work close to home.
In the Mahoning Valley, that means more chances for recovery, more support for families, and more hope for what comes next.
Duane Piccirilli represents Region 7 on the OneOhio Recovery Foundation Board of Directors and serves as executive director of the Mahoning County Mental Health and Recovery Board. Region 7 includes Mahoning and Trumbull counties.