Beech Acres receives $1.1M to address mental health issues

Beech Acres Parenting Center has received $1.1 million in two grants from the Millstone Fund to support wraparound services that promote mental wellness and improve the emotional well-being of local children and adults.

The Millstone Fund is a family foundation focused on improving quality of life in Cincinnati. Its latest gift will benefit Beech Acres Parenting Center, a contemporary parenting organization that provides services ranging from foster care and adoption to parent coaching. The nonprofit serves more than 32,000 people annually across eight Southwest Ohio counties and four Northern Kentucky counties.

The funding will support Beech Acres’ behavioral health services in schools. Laura Mitchell, the nonprofit’s president and CEO, said the grant-funded programming will work through schools and directly with adult caregivers. Beech Acres has already begun implementing these services in a variety of school settings, including Catholic inner-city schools in Cincinnati and others in Warren County, Ohio, and Erlanger/Elsmere and Covington, Kentucky.

“Mental health challenges are the leading cause of disability and poor life outcomes in young people,” Mitchell said. “For many parents and adult caregivers, the stress of arranging housing, health care and food only heightens that stress.”

“We are grateful to the Millstone Fund for recognizing the success we are having with families and supporting the expansion of Beech Acres’ innovative work to deliver upstream, preventative mental wellness services in the community,” she said.

How the funding will support local mental health

Beech Acres’ work responds to recent warnings from the U.S. surgeon general’s office about the mental health of parents and children. The advisory noted that over the last decade, parents have consistently reported higher levels of stress than other adults, which can ultimately affect children. This followed a similar announcement in 2021 declaring a mental health crisis among children, with one in three high school students reporting persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.

Support from the Millstone Fund will help expand Beech Acres’ Beyond the Classroom program. Currently embedded in 27 partner schools, the program provides trauma-informed counseling, crisis intervention and prevention-focused techniques. When students are diagnosed with a mental health condition, the Beyond the Classroom team offers targeted, customized therapy at school sites. Beech Acres also provides resources for caregivers to build stable home environments.

Funding will also support the expansion of The Character Effect, Beech Acres’ social-emotional learning curriculum, as well as Parent Connext, its parent coaching program, which connects caregivers with child development experts.

Support from the Millstone Fund for these Beech Acres programs will continue through 2026.