Success in the Face of Adversity, Our 2025 Story
It’s been a hard year for those of us who work in behavioral health and human service systems. Budget cuts, grant cancellations and diminishing resources have been key storylines since this spring. When those factors are paired with the ongoing systemic instability, resource scarcity and the general unknown that comes with our chosen field of work, one might wonder how anything was accomplished at all. Despite the headwinds we all faced, a lot of great work was done due to the dedication and tenacity of the amazing professionals we are proud to call colleagues.
We were lucky enough to witness some that great work firsthand, both here in our offices, and in the offices of our clients. Here are just some of the amazing things we got to be a part of this year:
The Launch of RHOADS
Working with our friends at Ohio Recovery Housing, we successfully continued the build out of The Recovery Housing Operator Affiliate Data System (RHOADS). This system brings a comprehensive suite of digital tools for Recovery Housing Operators to utilize. Among the pieces that we brought online this year are Certification Management that allows operators to register, certify and recertify their properties, a Learning Management System (LMS) for hosting trainings and webinars, and a complaint portal system where concerned community members can report observed issues. Learn more about our exciting work with ROHADS here.
NW Ohio Fatherhood Connection Program Final Report
Of the many projects we work on with our friends at the Zepf Center, a 2025 highlight was the final evaluation report we completed for their NW Ohio Fatherhood Program for the period of April 2021-September 2025. This impressive program enrolled 1,173 fathers over the course of five years. Through our evaluation, we observed that fathers who participated in the NWOFC program demonstrated statistically significant improvements in full-time employment and increased earnings. Effect sizes for these changes were moderate to large, suggesting meaningful improvements in participants' economic stability. Specifically, 49% of fathers had improved employment status and 58% of fathers had improved earnings. Fathers rated the program as very helpful (4.75/5), and over 411 high school diplomas, GEDs, vocational or technical certificates or other accomplishments were earned by participants. We also had to share these results with national audiences during multiple webinars. See our reporting infographic here.
National Speaking Opportunities
In addition to the webinars mentioned above for the NWOFC program, the Mighty Crow team had the opportunity to share our research and evaluation work with National Audiences at the following gatherings:
The National Alliance for Recovery Residences 2025 Conference was held in September 2025, and we delivered a keynote address with our colleague, Danielle Gray from Ohio Recovery Housing. This keynote featured the collaborative work involved in building the RHOADS system. Our presentation was titled: From Insight to Infrastructure: Ohio’s Model for Sustainable Recovery Housing. Presenting this information were Jake Hammond, Gretchen Hammond, Kathleen Gallant, and Danielle Gray.
We followed up our keynote with a breakout presentation where we featured the Learning Management System built as a companion to RHOADS. This LMS features over 20 courses that are designed to build the skills of staff working in recovery housing.
ResilienceCon TM 2025 was held in April 2025 and Drs. Rebecca McCloskey and Brieanne Beaujolais presented on two projects, developing poster presentations and giving a talk about their work: (1) Ohio Health Care Professionals’ Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic; and (2) Rapid Response Emergency Addiction and Crisis Team (RREACT): Building Community Resilience After Opioid Overdose. The work on Professionals’ Resilience during the pandemic was the result of a large statewide survey done in collaboration with the Ohio Professionals Health Program (OhioPHP) where over 13,500 professionals responded. The work on RREACT represents several years of collaborative work with the Columbus Division of Fire to evaluate their rapid response and services to people in need. Dr. McCloskey was joined by Alina Sharafutdinova from RREACT for this presentation. You can read more about ResilienceCon here.
The Bureau of Justice Assistance held webinar for COSSUP grantees in October where Dr. McCloskey again presented with Alina Sharafutinova from Columbus Division of Fire's RREACT team. In this presentation, they talked about the process of collecting both quantitative and qualitative data for RREACT's evaluation.
The 2025 Runaway and Homeless Youth National Grantee Training was held in Washington, DC, in December 2025. The theme was “Harnessing Data for Healthy Outcomes” and Michael Kocinski was selected as a presenter, along with our colleague from Zepf Center, Andrea Murdock. Their presentation was titled: “Using Data to Build Understanding of RHY: Comprehensive Evaluation Strategies to Advocate for Youth, Improve Decision-Making, and Build Partnerships.” Michael and Andrea highlighted the nearly ten years of data and evaluation for Safety Net, Zepf’s emergency shelter for runaway and homeless youth, including the utilization of screening tools and assessments to help hone in on the needs of youth. Michael also incorporated arts-based evaluation into the presentation, sharing an exercise he recently completed with youth in the shelter and the drop-in center and replicated that exercise with over conference attendees representing 51 US states and territories.
Road to Hope opened their new facility
It was an exciting year for our friends at The Road to Hope as they fully renovated a nursing home facility into a recovery housing community. Located in the tip of Lorain, Cuyahoga and Medina Counties, the Trinity House is designed to be a modern, secure recovery center tailored specifically for women and women with children. Road to Hope renovated the grounds, the exterior, and every room of the interior for this capital project. Fundraising included grants from private foundations, individual donors, community foundations, and local and state public entities. We’re proud to have worked closely with the Road to Hope as this project proceeded. Members of the Mighty Crow team were thrilled to be on hand at the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony on October 1.
Evaluating OneOhio Foundation Grants
Along with our partners JG Research and Evaluation, we are serving as the Evaluation Team for the grant monies that are awarded by the OneOhio Recovery Foundation. During this year, that offered us several opportunities to interact with the 245 grantees across that state that have been awarded funds so far – including at the OACBHA conference in Columbus this summer, as pictured below. We also spend a significant time this fall traveling across the state to deliver preliminary results of the data collected during the first reporting period of the grants. We subsequently finished a detailed report on that data that has been submitted to the Foundation.
As the year winds down, we hope you can take a moment to celebrate the wins that you and/or your team have accomplished this year as well. It’s not easy to get things done when so many things stand in our way, so it’s important to recognize the good being done. It helps remind us why we do what we do every day. It is our sincere wish that you take a moment to reflect, take a little time to rest, and get ready to rejoin us on the front lines of doing the work that helps others in 2026.
