Interview with One Eighty

Interview with One Eighty

domestic violence; Community action; Community involvement; Women's rights; Substance abuse

This is an interview is with Bobbi Douglas, the executive director, and Rhiannon Whalen-Harris, the community relations and prevention director at One Eighty. In this interview Douglas and Whalen-Harris discuss One Eighty's work and collaboration with other organizations in the larger Wooster community and with The College of Wooster. They also talk abut the history of the organization One Eighty and their contribution to the Wooster community.

Vogt, Anna

Douglas, Bobbi
Whalen-Harris, Rhiannon

Unpublished

2018-11-19

Mp3

eng

Sound

OneEighty_Interview.mp3

Wooster, Wayne and Holmes county

Vogt, Anna

Douglas, Bobbi
Whalen-Harris, Rhiannon

The College of Wooster Digital Studio

[00:00:01] Anna Vogt: Hi, my name is Anna Vogt, I am a double-major senior in Psychology and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Today is Monday, the 19th of November 2018. I am here today together with Bobbi Douglas and Rhiannon Whalen-Harris from OneEighty, an organization in Wayne and Holmes county. First, could you tell me about your organization OneEighty? What does your organization do?

[00:00:25] Rhiannon Whalen-Harris: So, OneEighty is a behavioral health care facility and we provide intervention, prevention, clinical services, residential services, we can get into talking about all the specifics of that if you want to, or... that’s just the real general overview.

[00:00:46] Bobbi Douglas: I was just going to say, our mission is helping people change direction, and the six major areas that we deal with are domestic violence, sexual assault, addiction, both treatment and prevention, and housing, and mental health.

[00:01:04] AV: So, what are both of your roles within OneEighty?

[00:01:11] BD: This is Bobbi, and I am the executive director.

[00:01:13] RWH: And Rhiannon, this-- I’m the community relations and prevention director.

[00:01:20] AV: So, you said that you could talk a little bit more about the more specific things you do within the organization. So, what are those?

[00:01:30] RWH: So, in terms of like the sexual assaults programming or the programming for domestic violence, we have a whole series of different services that are available, so we have our shelter and that is our 24-hour crisis shelter for individuals who have experienced forms of violence can stay we have a whole victims services department that is a part of that particular programming and individuals that we refer to as “ victim advocates” are a part of those services, so, we will be needing people who understand what sort of options are available for them, if they’ve experienced violence that programming also has specific prevention services, so we are out in the schools doing healthy relationship programming there’s also-

[00:02:24] BD: Men Working For Change.

[00:02:26] RWH: Mm-hmm, Men Working For Change Program, which is very much connected to the college here, so that has really had sustainability because of individuals from the college, those people who become part of the education and awareness programming within the community, I’m really recognizing that the more that we have men speaking out against those issues, then the more likely it is that we’re going to be able to actually change some of the social norms that we see that unfortunately tend to encourage or allow those issues among our society we also have a 24-hour crisis hotline that is a part of those services, so people call really at any time for any reason, you know, if they are really in need of any help or if they have questions, or need to talk to somebody we then as well have the substance abuse and addiction services, and, you may keep going… [laughs]

[00:03:24] BD: No, I can pick up. I was gonna say, with something about the sexual assault and domestic violence. We do have counseling available too, for people that need that additional help, not everybody does but some do, and we also have programming for kids who are witnessing violence we really believe, you know, in terms of prevention, that these kids are incredibly high-risk to perpetrated into the next generation so we’re hopeful, that if we intervene with them now, that won’t happen. In terms of our addiction programs, we have a pretty extensive prevention department that works a lot with community coalitions we use mentoring programs, we try very hard-- prevention is one of those things that misunderstood oftentimes about what is really affective in terms of preventing alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use. So, we really try to focus in on things we know that are things that are likely to work we have a whole continuum of care of services available for people who may start to experience problems in their lives, because of their alcohol/tobacco or any other drug use, but both pre-addiction and there may be problems like drunk driving or things like that, but certainly for people who have crossed the line into addiction. We have a wide range of services starting with outpatient services, residential treatment options, and then we have tried a lot of supportive activities at the backend of treatment to help people sustain their recovery. Along with that I’ll just add, we do have-- we have a, what we call ”supportive services department”, but the main portion of that works on people in housing issues we do have a recovery housing for people in recovery, but also just trying to prevent evictions and getting people rapidly rehoused into housing if they’ve lost their housing.

[00:05:29] AV: So, OneEighty officially established in 2016 out of a collaboration of multiple organizations, correct?

[00:05:36] BD: Yes, but the drug and alcohol part has been around since 1974, was First Wayne County Alcoholism Services and it became STEPS. Every Women’s House was, let’s see, Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Part and started in 1978 and they both have some kind of great stories about their origins, if you want to know that, but, we started working together in the late 90s to renovate the building that we’re housed in I became executive director of both agencies in ’97 we continued to operate separately. Then, in 2016 we officially actually, in 2006 we officially merged, 2016 we changed our name.

[00:06:22] AV: Oh, okay.

[00:06:23] BD: And went to one name.

[00:06:24] AV: So, can you tell me a little bit more about the history that you mentioned, or?

[00:06:29] BD: Yeah, I’ll start with the addiction, but I think you’ll be the most interested in the ones around domestic violence and sexual assault because of...

[00:06:36] AV: Either way. [laughs]

[00:06:36] BD: Your work... but our addiction side of things started by a man named Doug Pomeroy. He was a local minister in town who had a real heart for alcoholics, people with alcohol problems, and he did a lot of going to jails and to hospitals and pulling people off of barstools. Kind of the old way things were done, but he was just relentless to help people who had alcohol problems. He got the agency started and then we’ve just grown from there. In terms of the domestic violence and sexual assault, it came out of there was a group of women here in town, back when consciousness-raising groups were really big, and they were concerned about the issue of domestic violence and so they worked together with the police department and they actually set up a network of safe houses, so the police would call when somebody came in and one of these women would literally go in to the police station and pick up women and children and take them into their own personal homes and they did that for quite a while, and then they were doing a presentation and Julia Fishelson who was, a local philanthropist here in town her daughter is Ida Sue, her father is Nick Amster. [laughs]

[00:07:58] AV: Yeah.

[00:07:59] BD: Very big with the arts and different issues. But women were a big issue of hers. So, she was concerned, because her friends were taking people into their homes and she told the story when we opened a new shelter, that she went home and said to her husband: “I’m thinking about letting them use my mother’s house” she’d grown up in-- which was right across from the old, well from Cornerstone Elementary now to use as a shelter and he told her he didn’t think that was a very good idea. And she said she thought about it and decided it was her mother’s house and her mother would have liked that so she donated the use of the house to Every Women’s House and before her husband died he told her it was the best decision they ever made. [everyone laughs] So-- but we were housed in that four-bedroom house until like 1999 and at that point we built our current shelter which houses up to 44 people.

[00:08:52] AV: Wow. I have seen from some of our archival material that you were involved with some student organizations at The College of Wooster. Do you know what projects these are or how did they go in the past?

[00:09:05] RWH: Well currently, we’re involved with Men Working For Change program so, that’s something that we have lended our program name to here on campus, so that is officially a program house here on campus, but it’s our volunteer program that we, or that I spoke about a little bit before. I know of some others in the past, but…

[00:09:23] BD: Yeah, I was gonna say, the program houses, we for many, many years had a program house of women that volunteered in the shelter as we moved into the bigger shelter, we’re not able to use volunteers as quite the same way as we did when we were smaller, but we have a long history and probably would have had a very difficult time in getting the shelter established without that volunteer help, that was really critical. And I think there has been a variety of programs too that have worked with us round alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use. I know I personally used to do training up here about how to throw a successful party [laughs] without, you know, doing things that aren’t really wise. I’ve done a lot of, I think we over the years have done quite a bit of education up here on education on campus. We’re part of the sexual assault response team that they had up here at one point.

[00:10:22] AV: Oh wow.

[00:10:23] BD: Yeah.

[00:10:25] AV: Has OneEighty collaborated with other local organizations in the past, or currently?

[00:10:31] RWH: We have quite a bit of collaboration within the community with, uh, different agencies and different, you know, we kind of consider ourselves to be partners with a lot of agencies within the community, so, I think one of the most important things to talk about, is that we’re, uh, we’re with the Mental Health and Recovery Board, and so, uh, the Mental Health and Recovery Board is a governing agency, is it a...

[00:11:02] BD: They plan fund and monitor mental health and addiction services for Wayne and Holmes county.

[00:11:10] RWH: So, the counseling center is a part of that, Anazao, Catholic Charities, again, ourselves, am I missing...

[00:11:19] BD: Um, NAMI.

[00:11:20] RWH: NAMI, is a part of that.

[00:11:22] BD: Which is the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, it’s a local chapter. One time, the director of the Wayne County Community Foundation said we were the poster child for collaboration, we do very little without looking around to see who we can partner with. We’re part of a number of collaboratives. Um, United Way would be another one, but there’s a housing coalition, um, we have four community coalitions in Wayne and Holmes county, the opioid task force, the domestic violence and sexual assault coalition, the human trafficking coalition [laughs], suicide prevention, so, we work quite a bit with our partners, and I think, uh, part of our, kind of our baseline philosophy is that it takes communities to change these problems, and we’re just part of it, we can provide leadership, we can provide resources, but ultimately, it takes all of us.

[00:12:18] AV: Does OneEighty have any upcoming events?

[00:12:22] RWH: We do have, uh, one that is coming up in the beginning of December which is specific to, uh, it’s open to the public, and it’s really just recognizing how people can be more friendly in terms of hosting parties for individuals in recovery, as well as for individuals who are in recovery who feel more comfortable about attending holiday celebrations and maybe, you know making sure that their wishes are known or that they’re just prepared for what that might look like. So that’s gonna be at the Wooster library here in town, an evening event, and it should be pretty fun, it’s gonna be pretty relaxed, deserts and hot chocolate and those sorts of things will be available.

[00:13:13] BD: Uh, Dr. Labor, who is our addictionologist on our staff, our medical doctor, is going to be speaking at Great Decisions this year too, which is here on campus, which I am really excited about that. There are probably just so many more events.

[00:13:25] RWH: Yeah, there is a lot in the works, we’re actually just coming up to sort of a, you know, it’s getting into the holiday times, so, things are scattered out a bit more than they normally are, but, uh, the community relations & prevention department, as well as other departments, we’re in a continual process of planning events, so, uh, connecting to our website and our social media is a great way to what we have going on because again, there is always something going on in the planning process.

[00:13:57] AV: Would OneEighty like to be involved with other local organizations or the college in the future? And in what ways? And do you have any initiatives in mind?

[00:14:07] BD: Wow, that’s a big question. [everyone laughs]

[00:14:09] RWH: Well, I think the first thing that comes into my mind for me is that, you know, to continue with the collaborations that we have, as well as, you know, grow those, like, Men Working For Change, as I said, we’ve had wonderful sustainability here on campus. We’ve watched that program grow over just the past couple of years. We’re excited about the idea of it growing. And then the big goal of that is really for it to be more community based, and so to use the example of how successful that has been here on campus, and into the community more and get more community support on that.

[00:14:51] BD: We’re currently, there’s some of the big initiatives we have going on right now are, um, we’ve hired a physician as of January 1st, so we’re bringing up our medical services, so that’s an area where we are definitely trying to work with our community, our physician is really good about reducing stigma, when she speaks, people get it. I had a physician say to me, “After 15 years, I finally understand it”. Um, so I think that that’s a piece but we’re also in the midst of a capital campaign that, um, we’ll be building a new women’s residential treatment center that will have 24 beds and that will allow that children to reside with their moms which is often a big barrier and right now that’s as far out as I’m seeing. I think we try and continue to add to our continuum of services that are available for folks as the need arises and again, to work with the hospital, like we’re entrusted working with the emergency room around the issue of addiction and also with our local EMTs to help them, because there is so much on the frontlines with people as overdoses occur and things like that but also in terms of domestic violence, sexual assault, I should say that, I mean the hospital is one of our partners too in terms of we have a sexual assault response team at the hospital, so I think that continuing to look at those areas where we can partner with people and intervening with folks more on their own natural environment, and hopefully in a way that’s less threatening to them and they are going to be more to whatever they might need in terms of services.

[00:16:38] RWH: And I think that it’s such a challenging question because we truly are always sort of in that process, always looking at, you know, what needs to be connected further within the community. Bobbi mentioned the sexual assault response team in partnership with the hospital, we are right now in the process of connecting with the Orrville Aultman hospital as well and so we’re getting all the individuals that are trained who respond here at the Wooster hospital also trained to respond at the Orrville hospital, so that’s just one example of something that, uh, it just kind of happened organically cause of the need of the community and, uh, what our connections already were.

[00:17:27] AV: Are there any ways in which One Eighty supports the LGBTQIA+ community?

[00:17:32] RWH: That is an area of focus work for us. We have some specific plans that are in place in terms of really recognizing that, you know, it’s a community that of course we have to learn more about. We do, um, a couple of years back, we were trained under the Safe Zone with BRAVO and so that was one of the very specific steps that we took to be more educated and better prepared as an agency in terms of response as well as thinking about, you know, Bobbi’s kind of pointing out to us here, like our materials and how those are presented in a way that are more welcoming to the LGBTQIA+ community, um, but also, as I kind of said in the beginning, we don’t look at those sort of underserved populations as though, you know, we just need to learn something and then we’re good, you know [Bobbi laughs], we’re prepared , but it really is a process for us that we know we have to continue to learn and continue to really be aspiring allies for that particular community as well, as well as some others.

[00:18:52] BD: Yeah, I would say, um, also we do have a cultural competency group and our organization we did a focus group with that particular population, again to try and talk about what our needs, what our barriers, um, to people, having services. We also are a trauma-informed care organization, so the idea is that a lot of folks in that population often have had trauma in their lives, um, so I think that some of the things that we do across the board there too could be helpful to anyone that is coming from some kind of marginalized organization.

[00:19:31] AV: Well we’ve been talking a lot now about the different kinds of ways you involved, uh, as an organization, but what kinds of impact do you think OneEighty has on the greater Wooster community?

[00:19:44] BD: I hope we have a lot of impact [laughs] cause our community really supports us in many, many, many ways. And we use the term, we like to believe we are a trusted partner with our community and I see that pretty broadly across all the socioeconomic groups in the organization or in the community, so even people who may not understand sometimes what we do, I think, tend to believe us when we talk about what it’s really like. I mean, one of the issues we are dealing with a lot right now is this homelessness population that is downtown, and I think we’re looked at as a trusted partner to deals with those kinds of issues. Um, I also think that we’re considered a safe place for people who have need for our services and, um, I hope we work very hard to be a home-like environment and something that’s warm and welcoming and I think that people feel comfortable where we are and I think ultimately know that we’re a place where they can get help. I mean I could talk on and on about our outcomes in the community and specific people, unfortunately I don’t think that we’ve solved either of the problems we’re addressing, but I do believe that we provide a safety net to people who are experiencing those and hopefully who are able to help people change their lives in a positive way, so that those things aren’t, um, part of it.

[00:21:07] AV: What are some of the obstacles or challenges your organization is currently facing, and how are you planning on addressing these issues, if possible, in terms of collaborative event?

[00:21:20] BD: The biggest issue we’re facing right now is probably not anything that is very interesting to talk about [laughs]. Um, there’s a major change going on in the state in how we’re paid for services and it has basically turned us upside-down in many ways, um, in terms of being able to bill for services and paid for them so that we have the funding available to continue to provide them. So, I would say that that’s the biggest issue right now that is challenging us in taking us out of our time, it’s called behavioral health care redesign and it’s complicated and boring, um [laughs], but it’s problematic.

[00:22:00] AV: But I think it’s a very relevant topic. It’s happening.

[00:22:05] BD: Right, right. They changed the way we bill basically and then of July 1st they moved us all under Managed Care, which means we now have to have preauthorization for treatment, um, we had to add to our administrative burden and all those kind of things so, I would think that that’s a big one, stigma is always an issue for both, cross the board with our services and how people think about people who have these issues going on in their life until they have them going on in their life and then, um, you know, people’s attitudes tend to change, so I think that that’s problematic as well, I don’t know what you would add, Rhiannon?

[00:22:46] RWH: I was just thinking a little bit about, you know, how much we’re hearing about the opioid epidemic and so, um, trying to sort of balance that out within the agency because there are funds that are coming in, uh, you know, in, for my world in terms of prevention, I can speak to that, the prevention focus is on opioids or on prescription medication and what we know is that that’s not really what youth are experimenting with and so, um, from more of a prevention fundamentals focus we want to talk about other substances, so really just trying to balance that out, like, where the funds are and what we really need to focus on can sometimes be a little bit off, but we find ways in terms of making it work.

[00:23:43] BD: I think absolutely. Dr. Labor, our physician, just talks about a drug, is a drug, is a drug, we need to stop talking about the opioid epidemic and be talking about addiction in general. And she’s right and we’re seeing a real shift right now to methamphetamine but the people that are dying right now if you look at the autopsy result are just kind of a mixed bag. They’re dying from a combination of all kinds of things mixed together, so.

[00:24:09] AV: Is there anything else you would like to mention before we end this interview?

[00:24:14] RWH: I think we’ll just plug again that we’ve got the website and, uh, Facebook is probably our most active social media. We are also on Twitter and LinkedIn, uh, it’s a great way to stay connected to the issues, you know, we’re posting the information just about the different um things that we’re dealing with but we’re also posting about all the activities that we have going on. Um, you know, the Capital Campaign, there’s information there about that, like that’s really the way to stay connected to us.

[00:24:48] BD: And I think we really love working together with the college, I know last year, someone did a talent show with the extra proceeds actually coming to us. Anyways, just different events that were invited to be part of, um, educational events on campus or things that, um, are around advocacy we really appreciate.

[00:25:14] AV: Well, thank you so much for your time and input. It was great having you here

[00:25:18] RWH and BD: Thank you.

Sound

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