Building Hope Summit County

Building Hope Summit County supports programs through three priority areas: community, access, and capacity. Much of Building Hope’s early work centered around community interventions, including Stigma Reduction Media Campaigns and Community Connectedness Events. Today, Community Connectedness Events have expanded to include weekly all-ages activities in both English and Spanish, as well as youth-specific activities. Other Building Hope community programs include Behavioral Health Trainings for community members and behavioral health professionals, as well as collaborative Community Behavioral Health Evaluation.  

The majority of Building Hope’s programs support access to behavioral health services. The Behavioral Health Scholarship Program has provided case management and financial support for thousands of hours of therapy to residents and workforce members who could not afford therapy otherwise. Building Hope also assists local partners with Employee Assistance Programs, partnering with nonprofits and small businesses to confidentially connect employees with behavioral health resources. In recognition of the diverse behavioral health needs of community members, Building Hope has expanded to fund Support Groups for a variety of distinct needs and created a Peer Support Warmline. Building Hope has also recently responded to community need for expanded high acuity support, designing and implementing an Immediate Access Therapy Program that provides high acuity clients with access to continuous, multi-day stabilization therapy at no cost.  

As a rural mountain community, Summit County faces continual challenges in behavioral health capacity. In order to increase private provider capacity, Building Hope funds the Insurance Support, paying for credentialing and billing services to increase provider insurance acceptance and decrease community members costs. Building Hope also supports Mini-Grants for behavioral health providers, funding up to $2,000 in professional development costs including supervision and trainings such as play therapy, eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing, and acudetox. In order to address the challenges of relocation, Building Hope also administers The Summit County Behavioral Health Education Fund, which supports larger professional development and education costs such as higher education for non-profit workers in the community. Lastly, Building Hope acts as the backbone organization for Behavioral Health Community Convening and Partnership, organizing the Strong Future Committee and augmenting its funds through grant-writing, as well as ensuring multi-agency collaboration across services.