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Beech Acres Parenting Center has received a total of $1.1 million through two separate grants from the Millstone Fund to support a suite of wraparound services promoting mental wellness and improving emotional well-being in children and adults, throughout Beech Acres’ service area in eight Southwest Ohio counties and four Northern Kentucky counties. The Millstone Fund is a family foundation focused on improving quality of life in Cincinnati.
Beech Acres’ work is in response to recent alarms from the surgeon general about the mental health of both parents and children. Beech Acres President and CEO Laura Mitchell explained that the programming supported by the Millstone Fund will work through schools and directly with adult caregivers. Beech Acres is applying multiple programs to create a full-service system of family support leading to better outcomes for children and caregivers.
“Mental health challenges are the leading cause of disability and poor life outcomes in young people, and for many parents and adult caregivers, the stress of arranging housing, health care and food only heightens that stress,” Mitchell said. “We are grateful to the Millstone Fund for recognizing the success we are having with families and supporting the expansion of Beech Acres’ innovative work to deliver upstream, preventative mental wellness services in the community.”
Earlier this year, the surgeon general issued an advisory on the mental health and well-being of parents, explaining that parents have been consistently more likely over the last decade to report experiencing high levels of stress compared to other adults, which can ultimately affect the well-being of children, as well. This followed a similar announcement from the surgeon general from 2021, declaring a mental health crisis in our children, with one in three high school students reporting persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.
Beech Acres services supported by the Millstone Fund have already started, including through a variety of school settings such as Catholic inner-city schools in Cincinnati, Erlanger/Elsmere and Covington in Kentucky, Warren County in Ohio and more.
Support from the Millstone Fund will aid increased development and expansion for Beech Acres’ Beyond the Classroom program, which offers both prevention and treatment for mental illness/crises, while improving access to care and equitable health outcomes. The program is embedded in 27 partner schools, changing the trajectory of children’s lives by addressing their mental well-being. Beyond the Classroom enhances students’ readiness to learn through trauma-informed counseling, crisis intervention, and prevention-focused techniques. The program also assesses family needs, to identify and address areas of deficiency. When students are identified with a mental health diagnosis, the Beyond the Classroom team provides targeted, multi-tiered, individual therapy within centralized school locations. Beech Acres applies resources for caregivers to build stable home environments, contributing to the child’s academic and emotional well-being and strengthening long-term outcomes for students and families.
Financial assistance from the Millstone Fund will also support the expansion of Beech Acres’ The Character Effect™ program, a social emotional learning curriculum. The Character Effect improves the culture of a school’s community by building on everyone’s innate strengths. It is recognized as evidence-based by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and also deemed a “Promising Approach” by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL).
Beech Acres will also be able to expand its Parent Connext® parent coaching program thanks to this support from the Millstone Fund. Parent Connext links caregivers to child development experts for evidence-based parent coaching. The program offers compassionate and scientific solutions for overcoming child rearing challenges, and is available through virtual sessions, pediatric offices and participating workplaces.
Support from the Millstone Fund for these Beech Acres services will continue through 2026.
Feature Image: Laura Mitchell, Beech Acres President and CEO. File photo