A“Business Clothing Drive” spearheaded by the People Preventing Poverty subgroup of the Strongsville Youth Commission is underway to collect gently worn professional clothing.

Read more about how you can help support this initiative here

Here at Hitchcock, we help women overcome addiction, achieve healing, and reassert control over their lives. We understand that women dealing with addiction will always face challenges, especially from things outside their control. So we work with our women to help them assert control over those things that are within their own power. Our Hitchcock team faces a similar struggle in the face of power dynamics in the public sphere that can impede our best efforts. But we know that there is always hope.

Public budget shortfalls and politics are providing a challenge to our sense of identity and stability. These power dynamics have affected our ability to meet the needs of our clients. The result can be shrinking budgets, public anger about shouldering the burden for the sick and disabled, uneven class issues, and are reflected most in service cuts, taxes, and political posturing which do little to help those most in need. The current climate in behavioral health is certainly a time of change and unpredictability, not unlike the feelings our women experience as they first begin to embrace a life of sobriety.

Funding shifts and cuts make it difficult to prepare or predict the direction or focus agencies should have or how they can continue to stay mission focused and client centered. Shifts in the service environment have been dramatic—we and other providers are experiencing changes both in paradigm and practice. Although change has been a constant in the social services field, this shift is transformative and will forever change what we can provide for clients and how the services are paid for. We are facing a time of forced collaboration to ensure sustainability and future growth.

What we have to guard against is not being prepared for the change or with being reluctant to acknowledge that change is before us. These are also the type of preparations our women make as they prepare to maintain substance abuse free lives—the loss of a loved one, health challenges, or being laid off from work can all lead to drug or alcohol abuse if our women are not emotionally and mentally prepared for the hardships they will inevitably face.

And despite all of the shifts and changes, there is some progress to be seen. Service providers are finally looking for new and innovative ways to better serve clients and ways of sharing resources, both financial and human, to be more efficient and effective. Progress can happen when we realize that no agency can be all things for all people and we are stronger and more efficient together than separately.

Sometimes a challenge can strengthen and deepen our ability to serve clients and communities, as long as we prepare for it. This is lesson we have been reminded of as we have worked to address the effects of powers outside of our control. But this is also a lesson we also endeavor to teach to the women we serve as they face their critical life challenges, and strive to lead productive, sober, happy lives. We are confident that both we and the women of Hitchcock will always rise to the challenge.

Saturday, March 24 and Saturday April 1 8:45 A.M. – 12:00 P.M.

Bringing over 25 years of experience to HCFW, we welcome Patricia Cannon as our new Director of Compliance and a key member of the Hitchcock leadership team. Patricia comes to Hitchcock with a diverse background that includes experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors, including her most recent endeavor in which she spent eight years at the Alcohol & Drug Addiction, Mental Health Services Board of Cuyahoga County.

Dedication to the health, wellness, and welfare of women and children have always been at the heart of Ms. Cannon’s career. Working with drug dependent women and children, she also has extensive experience in working with battered and abused women and children. Her tireless efforts oversaw the successful implementation of the Case Management Department for the Federal Demonstration Project which was tasked with decreasing the relapse rate of African American women through innovative treatment and programming.

Ms. Cannon received her degree in Psychology from the University of Cincinnati and her Masters Degree in Social Work from Cleveland State University. She is the mother of three children and is member of Mt. Zion Fellowship Church.