Community Memorial Healthcare Receives Grants to Enhance Mental Health Services Throughout Ventura County

NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: November 20, 2025

Please Contact:

Briana Kallas, Director of Marketing

805-948-5492

bkallas@mycmh.org

Community Memorial Healthcare Receives Grants to Enhance Mental Health Services Throughout Ventura County

(Ventura, California) Community Memorial Healthcare is pleased to announce it has received two grants totaling over $9 million to increase mental health and psychiatry services for children, teens, and adults, as well as expand the health system’s psychiatry residency program. 

These grants are helping to meet a major, unmet need in Ventura County. In the county’s 2022 Community Health Needs Assessment, 73 percent of county residents said mental health is the most important health issue the county faces, especially since the COVID pandemic. And, California ranks among the lowest states treating people with a mental illness. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), 62.3 percent of adults with mental illness – nearly two-thirds – are left untreated in California.
 

“Community Memorial is committed to meeting the needs of our community,” said Mick Zdeblick, President & CEO, Community Memorial Healthcare. “Working with Gold Coast Health Plan and the County of Ventura, we will continue to educate and excite clinicians that will care for those suffering from mental illness. These two grants help provide sustaining funds for these services today and in the near future.”   

The first grant of about $6.9 million, called the Resilience, Innovation, Sustainability & Equity (RISE) Grant, is being funded over three years by Gold Coast Health Plan, the local Medi-Cal plan for Ventura County. The grant, which is administered by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI), will help Community Memorial train more residents as psychiatrists, help to retain them in Ventura County, and expand psychiatric services to low-income patients and all patients at Community Memorial Health Centers and other settings countywide.

Community Memorial Healthcare has the only accredited psychiatry residency program in Ventura County, with 16 current residents. The RISE grant funds 10 of those positions. The grant also allows Community Memorial to implement a 24-hour psychiatric crisis intervention service for its patients, with the goal of reducing emergency room visits, hospitalizations, and wait times for care. Dr. Joseph C. Vlaskovits is the program director of the Psychiatry Residency program at Community Memorial Healthcare.

“We want to build a stable psychiatric workforce because there are so few people going into this field locally,” said Maureen Hodge, LCSW, the health system’s Director of Ambulatory Behavioral Health and Grants. “This is a much-need opportunity for us as a health system, but also for the entire county to have more psychiatry services locally,” she said.

Community Memorial’s psychiatry residents are shared with other county mental health programs and have rotations during their training within other locations and settings across the county. Psychiatry residents provide direct psychiatric care at Community Memorial locations, along with Ventura County Medical Center, Ventura County Behavioral Health, and California State University, Channel Islands. This wide reach ensures increased access to mental health services for Medi-Cal beneficiaries, particularly in underserved areas. 

The second mental health grant, called the Innovation Grant, is a $2.4 million, three-year grant from the County of Ventura to serve youth up to age 26. The need to serve young people is great.  “Up to 20 percent of Ventura County youth face mental health challenges, especially anxiety and depression,” Hodge said, adding that not nearly enough psychiatrists who treat children and teens are available in the county. NAMI says suicide rates among youth ages 10-24 in California has increased over 62 percent between 2007 and 2021.  

“We are implementing an evidence-based model that is new to our system and designed to deliver mental health care to youth more quickly, with fewer obstacles and delays” Hodge said. “This robust approach ensures that families and young people receive the support they need without unnecessary barriers.”  

The Innovation Grant funds the Collaborative Care Model, an evidence-based, team approach where psychiatrists consult with Community Memorial’s primary care doctors. This allows timely mental health treatment for youth, enabling primary care physicians to prescribe care with psychiatric support, thereby reducing delays.  

Community Memorial Healthcare is a nonprofit, independent health system serving the needs of Ventura County, California. It is comprised of Community Memorial Hospital – Ventura, Community Memorial Hospital – Ojai, and a network of primary and specialty care health centers across its service area. The organization is supported by the Community Memorial Foundation and the Ojai Valley Hospital Foundation. Visit mycmh.org for more information. 

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