Wednesday, August 27, 12noon-1pm, The Ellis, 777 N. Fourth St., this event will also be live-streamed on YouTube

Optimal Health Series and Jeffrey Family Fund Forum: Promoting a Thriving, Equitable and Sustainable Community

Crisis response innovation in Franklin County has taken bold leaps forward in the past two years, and it’s now taken another with the opening of the new Franklin County Crisis Care Center in May 2025. With the statewide rollout of the 988 Crisis Hotline in 2022, funding for a new non-police crisis response program aiming for the May 2026 ballot — and the new Crisis Care Center — Central Ohio has taken a wholly new and multifaceted approach to crisis response. In the past, crisis responders were often police units, who were called to handle not crimes and criminals, but citizens experiencing trauma or mental health or substance use emergencies. But a fresh new attitude toward crisis response has now created an array of flexible responsive strategies and services, saving lives and reducing the risk to citizens and first responders alike. With an expert panel of passionate leaders, we dig into our region’s radical rethinking of crisis response and look at the newest resources designed to bring citizens and their families safely through crisis.

Featuring Erika Clark Jones, CEO, The Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health Board of Franklin County (ADAMH); Melissa Green, Columbus City Councilmember; Brian Stroh, MD, CEO and Medical Director, Netcare; Chana Wiley, Co-Chair, Columbus Safety Collective Campaign, and Campaign Manager for Ohio Families Unite for Political Action and Change; with moderator Samantha Hendrickson, Medical Business and Health Care Reporter, The Columbus Dispatch.

RSVP for this event by using this link.

Hosted by Columbus Metropolitan Club.