Children's Home of Northern Kentucky and the City of Florence have partnered to help the city's residents get access to the care they need.
On Tuesday, Aug. 26, CHNK CEO Rick Wurth ceremoniously accepted a $100,000 check from the Florence City Council to address the need for substance use and mental health services.
"There are two fundamental poisons in our groundwater as Kentuckians — untreated mental health issues and untreated substance use disorder treatment needs," Wurth said.
The money is not from tax dollars, as noted by Florence Mayor Julie Metzger Aubuchon. These dollars are from pharmaceutical opioid settlements.
Aubuchon explained in last week's council meeting that there are restrictions as to how these funds can be spent, and treatment for substance use disorders falls under qualifying reasons.
Watch to learn more about the services provided by Children's Home of Northern Kentucky:
"Your $100,000 investment goes directly to attacking and addressing those two major systemic drivers," Wurth said.
I went to CHNK's main campus at Devou Park in Covington and met with Chief Strategic Officer Julie Raia. I asked Raia how these dollars would help people in Florence.
"It expands access," Raia said.
The organization's CSO described the roadblocks that may prevent someone from accessing the care they need.
"It can be so difficult to navigate just how to find services, who provides them. Transportation needed to get to those services. Will your insurance company cover those services? And that's not always the case for everyone. So, when cities and counties have the funding to reach out to providers like CHNK Behavioral Health, the first thing we're able to do is expand that access and create that easier path to mental health," Raia said.
Raia told me CHNK's services cover a wide range of residential and outpatient services, for both kids and adults.
We have covered other ways that CHNK has found solutions in the Northern Kentucky region. Last August, the organization opened a new location in Grant County. This past July, WCPO 9's De'Jah Gross profiled the partnership between CHNK and NKU to help train the next generation of mental health professionals.
Raia told me that she hopes more partnerships are on the way.
"We just absolutely have to expand these services and partner with our, our counties to do that," said Raia.
