Agency Hero Highlight -Talbert House 3/2/22

This month we are highlighting another long-standing TTN Member, who joined us in 2016. Talbert House is empowering children, adults and families to live healthy, safe and productive lives. The agency’s network of services focuses on prevention, assessment, treatment and reintegration. Services are provided at multiple sites throughout Southwest Ohio.

What Makes You a Trauma Hero in our Community?

Talbert House has two avenues in which they are providing trauma informed care. The first is Safeguards, a Talbert House program specifically addressing trauma treatment. Safeguards serves children and families who have been victims of any type of trauma, but specifically assists sexual abuse survivors, providing support to the victims and their families during their healing process. In addition, trauma informed care is critical to working with perpetrators of sexual abuse, treating them with compassion and addressing their own victimization process. Talbert House offers individual services, family treatment, and more recently, a Case Manager has been incorporated the team to work with youth and adults with trauma history. During weekly meetings and supervision sessions, Talbert House provides space to therapists to debrief their experiences with their patients – encouraging staff to practice self-care and monitor compassion fatigue. During the last two years, the team handled incredible challenges based on the social panorama and circumstances, involving racial inequalities and tensions that evoked the generational trauma that cause fear and pain in our families. A divided political environment caused frustration and insecurity in our immigrant families was also part of last year’s scenarios. Then a pandemic hit, exacerbating the mental health difficulties of our communities. However, in the middle of the difficulties, the compassion grows, and the Talbert House team was able to handle their own circumstances, trauma, and fears while continuing to offer quality services to our communities in times when it was needed the most.

The second way Talbert House is providing trauma-informed care is by focusing on the increase of the accidental overdose rates in the black community, which is up 47%. This increase is directly related to the isolation of use due to the pandemic, the stigma of the disease, the lack of awareness of available treatment that is accessible and affordable for all members of the community, and the increase in fentanyl distribution. Fentanyl is being laced in all drugs unknowingly to the community. The Gateways Peer Recovery Coaches provide outreach to communities of color supporting information dissemination, harm reduction and treatment. The African American Workgroup co-lead by Talbert House has launched a faith-based initiative working with two churches – The Greater New Hope Missionary Baptist and Corinthians Baptist – to provide harm reduction initiatives in ten traditional black churches to reduce overdose rates and increase engagement in treatment. The church has great influence in the black community and these churches open the door to reducing the stigma and increasing access to services. These innovative approaches are addressing community and individual trauma, looking at the collective and historical adverse experiences that continues to traumatize this population of our community.

Is there a call-to-action you’d like to make?
Addiction and mental health services are offered in Brown, Clinton, Hamilton, and Warren counties.You can request an appointment at this link: https://www.talberthouse.org/outpatient-appointment-requests/ or if you’d like to speak with someone immediately, call 513-221-HELP(4357) for assistance.

Thank you to Talbert House for being a TTN Member and for providing specialized, innovative, and collaborative services for trauma survivors and the staff who treat them. Last year, Talbert House served over 26,000 clients face-to-face, with an additional 134,000 receiving prevention and hotline services. Such an amazing achievement in and for our community, and we are eager to see those nunmbers grow as we continue to advance trauma-informed care together!

Wishing you a day filled with HOPE and with resources like this to find the services you or someone you know needs!

Melissa Adamchik, MA, LPP, Executive Director, Tristate Trauma Network