Activate Allen County co-Directors Kayla Monfort, left, and Josh Unterbrink talk about their community health improvement plan during a Lima Rotary meeting Monday at the Veterans Memorial Civic Center.
Photo by Mackenzi Klemann | The Lima News
LIMA — Community health collaborative Activate Allen County is working to expand mental and behavioral health services in Allen County.
Co-Directors Kayla Monfort and Josh Unterbrink spoke to the Lima Rotary Club on Monday about their work, including plans to start an overdose prevention review board and advance evidence-based substance-use and suicide prevention programs.
Monfort and Unterbrink regularly review data to ensure Allen County’s community health improvement plan, which is revised every three years, meets the most pressing needs of the community.
They then work with partner agencies like Allen County Public Health, Lima hospitals and others to enact the plan.
The current health improvement plan prioritizes access to mental and behavioral health services in addition to other supports for healthy living like access to healthy foods, parks, transportation, housing and maternal and infant health.
To improve housing access, Monfort and Unterbrink advocated for the creation of a rental registry in Lima and are now looking toward programs that lower housing costs and increase homeownership.
The duo is also working to reduce lead exposure through additional testing in homes and children, who are at highest risk of developing lead poisoning, and working with parents to ensure children receive a well visit early in childhood.
Unterbrink encourages people to join one of the collaborative’s work groups, like the bike and pedestrian task force, the food policy group or the maternal and infant task force, to help advance the overall health of Allen County.
“We would love to have you volunteer and be a part of this work,” Unterbrink said, “because it takes all of us.”
