This month’s recipient of the Mercer Savings Bank Giving Mission donation is the Recovery and Wellness Center of Midwest Ohio.
This locally-funded organization provides recovery and behavior wellness services to residents of Darke, Miami and Preble counties. As a certified outpatient addiction agency, they also offer mental health counseling for a variety of issues, community psychiatric treatment services and a full scope of outpatient psychiatric services.
“Our mission statement,” says CEO Cynthia Wion, “is the easiest mission statement you will ever hear in your life. Our mission is to save lives. That’s our mission.”
To achieve this, the organization also focuses on case management and prevention. “We go into the schools and educate children – grades K through 12,” says Wion, “about substance abuse and mental health issues as a preventative measure. We also have outpatient psychiatric care, which means that in our employ, we have a chief medical officer named Dr. Phillip Pash. He heads up our medication management for mental health disorders, as well as substance use disorders.”
Wion has been with the organization for 26 years now. She started out as an outpatient counselor in 1995. “There’s been a lot of change since I came to the organization,” she says. “We definitely had fewer than 20 employees when I came in, and right now we range at any one time between 80 and 100 employees between the three counties.”
The organization also strongly encourages participation in recovery programs such a AA and NA, which bring people together to tackle these challenges. Support from a range of sources is key to managing addiction and recovery, and no one should feel they must go through it alone.
“There’s nothing that means more or feels better,” says Wion, “than when you see someone able to pull themselves out of the hole of addiction or mental health issues. There’s nothing in the world that feels better than that. My people in all counties are so committed to our mission. They go way over and above for our clientele. The client always comes first, regardless of what we need to do. The client always comes first.”
Support the Recovery and Wellness Center of Midwest Ohio
Donations to the Recovery and Wellness Center of Midwest Ohio can be made by check and mailed to 228 North Barron St, Eaton, OH 45320. For more information about the organization, its mission and how you can help call (937) 456-7694.
