CommonSpirit to end partnership 3 Coordinating Ukraine relief 3 Benedictine Sisters’ new MPJP 7 Health systems align philanthropy, community benefit for more impact

By JULIE MINDA

When philanthropy and community benefit practitioners within a health system unite, they can increase their work’s efficiency, tap into new resources, draw on one another’s expertise and have greater impact in their communities.

Community benefit and philanthropy leaders at Avera Health, Providence St. Joseph Health and SSM Health say their systems are particularly intentional about marrying their philanthropic and community benefit efforts aimed at such priorities as behavioral health, health equity and social determinants of health.

“We can have a tremendous impact on the people we serve … when we are all pushing in the same direction,” says Sandy Koller, chief philanthropy officer of SSM Health.

Centralization

Philanthropy teams raise funds from individuals and organizations and have historically been more focused on capital projects, medical equipment purchases

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CHRISTUS Santa Rosa partners with nonprofit to check that hearts of teenagers are healthy

By LISA EISENHAUER

After Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest during the “Monday Night Football” game Jan. 2, the phone at AugustHeart started ringing.

AugustHeart provides free electrocardiograms for middle- and high school-aged students at events it stages in and around San Antonio. Students and parents who were shocked into action by the televised collapse of a 24-year-old professional athlete wanted to take advantage of the San Antonio-based nonprofit’s next screening to check for undetected heart conditions.

a memory box at Camp GLOW, a grief support day camp in Waunakee, Wisconsin. Attendance is free thanks to the support of donors to the SSM Health at Home Foundation of Wisconsin. GLOW stands for Giving Loved Ones Wings.

Sweet home Atlanta

In the shadow of Atlanta skyscrapers, Sweet Auburn is a historic cradle of the nonviolent civil rights movement. Rev. Dr. Marin Luther King Jr. was born, preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and is buried in the urban neighborhood. Here, his widow Coretta Scott King leads a celebratory 1995 march down Auburn Avenue. Trinity Health and its members Saint Joseph Health System and Mercy Care are investing in affordable housing and expanding health care access in the neighborhood.

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Trauma recovery center helps patients overcome impacts of violence

By LISA EISENHAUER

When the staff of the Mercy Health — Toledo Trauma Recovery Center in Ohio began working with a 36-year-old man and his 4-year-old son last August, the pair were homeless. The father was the victim of domestic violence. He had suffered a history of family violence before that.

The center provided counseling and other support for the man and boy. The pair had moved into a home in January, but the center paid to relocate them to a safer one, away from the person who had physically assaulted the father for years.

OraLee Macklenar, the center’s supervisor, says the father’s life has stabilized. He is working full time and providing for his son. “He and his child are doing better emotionally, and he is focusing on

Trauma recovery center

From page 1 being a good father and is striving to break the cycle of violence for his son and the next generation,” Macklenar says.

The father and child are among about 2,000 crime victims and their families who the center based at Mercy Health — St. Vincent Medical Center has assisted since its founding in 2019. The services of its sevenmember team of licensed social workers, clinical counselors and a certified victim’s advocate come at no charge to clients who are victims or impacted by crime. The cost is covered by federal Victims of Crime Act funding via a grant administered by the Ohio Attorney General’s Office and by support from the Mercy Health Foundation.

Mercy Health is part of the Bon Secours Mercy Health system, based in Cincinnati.

Healing body, mind and spirit

Dr. John Leskovan, trauma medical director at Mercy Health — St. Vincent Medical Center, was among those who applied for the state funding that helped establish the trauma recovery center. The hospital is a Level I trauma center and a Level 2 pediatric trauma center and has specialists on staff to treat life-threatening and other serious injuries from accidents, violence and disasters.

Leskovan says he saw that while the 3,000 or so trauma victims coming to the hospital every year were getting solid medical care, many of them also needed mental health care to process their traumatic experiences. That’s why he and some of his colleagues quickly responded when they saw an email about the state administered grants to support recovery services for crime victims.

Their hope, Leskovan says, was to lock down funding for interventions that would help crime victims move past the trauma and avoid complications of post-traumatic stress such as crippling anxiety and depression that can impact health and well-being.

“We thought, ‘What better way to provide a prevention program than to help the survivors of violent crime?’” he says. The trauma recovery center also treats family members impacted by the injury to a loved one.

HOW COMMON IS TRAUMA?

Trauma occurs when a person is overwhelmed by events or circumstances and responds with intense fear, horror and helplessness.

90%

MORE THAN

Trauma is a risk factor in nearly all behavioral health and substance use disorders.

Source: National Council for Mental Wellbeing

Health Services Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, calls the impact of trauma “a behavioral health concern.” The agency notes that research has linked traumatic experiences, especially adverse childhood experiences, to chronic disease, mental and behavioral health issues and risky behaviors including substance abuse.

“Because these behavioral health concerns can present challenges in relationships, careers, and other aspects of life, it is important to understand the nature and impact of trauma, and to explore healing,” the agency says.

Outreach to the marginalized

During her 20-plus years as a therapist, Macklenar has specialized in the treatment of people with anxiety, trauma and substance use disorders. Most of her work has been with adults. Other therapists on the center’s staff specialize in treating children.

Not all of the state’s trauma recovery centers provide services to children. Macklenar says she and the other founders of Mercy Health — Toledo Trauma Recovery Center wanted it to offer therapy for children. “We know that the need is there and there’s just no way we could not address that population,” she adds.

The center is part of the National Alliance of Trauma Recovery Centers, which has 44 member programs in 10 states. The programs are based on a model developed at the University of California San Francisco in 2001. The goal of the outreach model is to provide therapy, care coordination and advocacy services for survivors of violence who are in underserved communities and falling through the cracks of traditional victim services.

Leskovan says he refers patients to the trauma recovery center every day. Not all of them are crime victims. Since its founding, the center has branched out to offer billable inpatient and outpatient care to people who have been traumatized by accidents, and to intensive care patients treated at the medical center who may feel depressed and anxious as they adapt to diminished capacity related to critical illness. The trauma recovery center’s staff does bedside assessments of patients whose injuries or serious illnesses have prompted medical staffers to suspect they might benefit from trauma therapy.

The Substance Abuse and Mental

33%

of youths exposed to community violence will experience post-traumatic stress disorder

Seconds

Nearly all children who witness a parent’s murder or sexual assault will develop post-traumatic stress disorder.

case management services.

The grant also covers an education program for kids ages 11-17 about potentially risky behavior, specifically in the area of human trafficking prevention. The center’s staff underwent training on an anti-trafficking curriculum developed by the state. They are teaching the curriculum at the clinic and in a school in a Toledo neighborhood, which has a high number of children in the legal system, exposed to family violence or in foster care.

The curriculum is typically taught over the course of about five days. Its goal is to provide safety, stabilization and engagement for the students. The instructors gather information from the kids at the start about their attitude toward unsafe behaviors — such as alcohol and other drug use — and score them for risk.

“Once they’re trained, we do another test and find out that their score is significantly improved because they’ve now been educated and they are less likely to engage in those risky behaviors that could potentially lead them into becoming a humantrafficking victim,” Macklenar says.

Restoration, healing

Human trafficking victims are among those that Macklenar and her team provide free services to at the trauma recovery center. Others are victims of gunshots, domestic violence, stalking and various forms of physical and emotional brutality. Most of the patients are women and children traumatized by violence. Macklenar says the recovery center offers its services as long as it takes patients “to get on the other side of trauma.” Some of the patients have been treated for as long as a year.

One patient was referred by the county prosecutor’s office after being hospitalized several times because of assaults by her domestic partner. Macklenar says the wom-

Recovery center offers range of services

Mercy Health — Toledo Trauma Recovery Center is one of eight such centers in Ohio and the only one in the northwestern part of the state. It has served people from as far away as Dayton, about 150 miles south. The assistance the center offers includes: an’s attacker was notorious for being able to locate her after her attempts to leave him.

Clinical case management.

Trauma-focused counseling that includes the use of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and cognitive processing therapy. Legal and court advocacy, such as assisting with filing for victims of crime compensation.

Safety planning.

Screening for alcohol and drug abuse issues and assistance with referrals for additional recovery services.

Group therapy for grief, loss and trauma.

Bedside support for those who are hospitalized.

Crime victims get referrals to the center from law enforcement, community agencies and clinicians at Mercy Health — St. Vincent Medical Center, where the center has offices and therapy rooms on the second floor.

At the time of her referral, the woman was pregnant. The temporary shelter where she had been living had discharged her to the street after 30 days. She was staying in a hotel rather than with family because her attacker had been able to locate her relatives’ homes.

The trauma recovery center first helped the woman find safe temporary shelter and began supportive psychotherapy for her trauma. Working with an FBI victim’s advocate, the center recently was able to help the woman enroll in a program that is providing recovery support and housing for the woman and her infant for a year.

“She will be working with a program that is building her resources and stability so that when she leaves, she will be able to successfully take care of herself and her child,” Macklenar says.

On her final visit to the trauma recovery center, the woman told the team they had helped her turn her life around.

Macklenar says: “We feel blessed and honored to do this work to see victims find restoration and healing.” leisenhauer@chausa.org

Vice President Communications and Marketing Brian P. Reardon

Macklenar participates in monthly virtual gatherings convened by the alliance to talk about services and share ideas.

The Toledo center’s staff hosts conferences to teach law enforcement and other professionals about the impact of trauma and how best to approach and assist victims.

‘Prevention piece’

Last year, the trauma recovery center added what Macklenar calls a “prevention piece” to its services. The center received a $145,000 state grant that allows her team to offer proactive victimization prevention to at-risk youth through the use of psychosocial support groups, psychotherapy, and

Editor Judith VandeWater jvandewater@chausa.org

314-253-3410

Associate Editor Julie Minda jminda@chausa.org

314-253-3412

Associate Editor Lisa Eisenhauer leisenhauer@chausa.org

314-253-3437

Graphic Design Norma Klingsick Advertising ads@chausa.org

314-253-3477

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