I came across this in the Cincinnati Enquirer today:


Wish lists look to meet needs of state psychiatric patients
By Shane Hoover
CantonRep.com staff writer
@shooverREP
Posted May 7, 2020

Cut off from visits with family and friends by the coronavirus pandemic, patients in Ohio’s state-run psychiatric hospitals are especially vulnerable to feelings of isolation.

It can demoralize patients, and “even make the mental health journey a little more difficult for them,” said Katherine Yoder, executive director of Adult Advocacy Centers, a not-for-profit that works with disabled adults who are crime victims.

To help raise the spirits of those patients, Adult Advocacy Centers is asking the public to buy games, coloring books, art supplies, music, journals, puzzle books and other leisure items for Ohio’s six regional psychiatric hospitals in Massillon, Northfield, Columbus, Cincinnati, Toledo and Athens.

Each hospital has an Amazon Wish List. All a person has to do is buy the item through Amazon and it will ship directly to the hospital, Yoder said.

Volunteer coordinators at each hospital helped create the Wish Lists and made sure the items are safe for patients.

Maureen Fahy, volunteer coordinator at Twin Valley Behavioral Healthcare in Columbus, said her hospital and frontline staff were extremely grateful for the donations. The Wish List items also send a message to patients.

“It gives them a sense that they’re not alone and folks are rooting for them,” she said.

Most people during this pandemic have had to adjust to new routines — including more free time — that can cause stress and anxiety.

But psychiatric patients don’t have the same freedom of movement or healthy distractions as someone living outside a facility, said Vicki Montesano, Bureau Chief for Mental Health Treatment at the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

Listening to music, playing games or passing time with a coloring book can be therapeutic, she said.

“It’s really good to give us a break when we’re feeling a lot of anxiety and fear, to regulate the body, to bring it back to a sense of normalcy,” Montesano said.

The Amazon Wish Lists for psychiatric hospitals is one of several pandemic-related projects Adult Advocacy Centers has undertaken.

The agency is working with the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Ashland County and Catholic Charities Services, Pathways Peer Support, to send letters to the more than 1,000 patients in state psychiatric hospitals. The first letters will go to Heartland Behavioral Healthcare in Massillon.

“Some of the people who are writing letters have also received mental health services in the community or in facilities themselves, and they understand firsthand the isolation and all the emotions that people go through for treatment,” Yoder said.

Adult Advocacy Centers also has set up Wish Lists for two Developmental Centers run by the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities.

Links to all of the Wish Lists can be found at AdultAdvocacyCenters.org under the Latest News tab.

The state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services also has a “COVID Careline” to provide emotional support around the clock during the pandemic. The number is 1-800-720-9616.


These are the wish lists for the 6 hospitals:

https://www.adultadvocacycenters.org...-list-project/

These are the wish lists for the 2 Develomental Centers:

https://www.adultadvocacycenters.org...ental-centers/