Dani’s Place, once only a local mother’s dream, has become a reality and is a place for hope and help for mental health recovery.
Local, regional and state officials and mental-health leaders and advocates gathered last week in Toledo for the ribbon cutting of Dani’s Place Mental Health Rehabilitation Center. It is a new residential treatment facility opening this fall in Northwest Ohio to help address a critical gap in mental-health care. It will provide a supervised living environment with continued treatment and care for individuals leaving inpatient psychiatric care.
Danielle “Dani” Leedy, a Mansfield native, for whom this new facility is named, was a successful young woman who died by suicide at age 33 in 2019 after a long battle with depression and other mental health challenges. In the immediate aftermath of her death, Dani’s parents, Donna and Jeff Heck of Lexington and their family founded the Mansfield-based mental health non-profit 33 Forever, Inc. During Dani’s battle, the Hecks experienced Dani being released from a mental health facility with no follow-up care plan -- exactly what Dani’s Place is designed to address.
“After three short days in a lockdown psychiatric unit of a level one trauma center, they gave her back to us without post-hospitalization care, any plan, referrals for anything; we were left completely on our own,” Mrs. Heck said. “It was in that scary and dark time that the seed was planted in our minds for the concept that is now Dani’s Place.”
Scott Sylak, Executive Director of the Mental Health & Recovery Services Board of Lucas County, noted that people recovering from surgeries and other medical issues routinely enter rehabilitation settings before returning to their homes. In contrast, people recovering from a major mental-health crisis typically leave the hospital after a stay of just three to 10 days.
Individuals discharged too soon from psychiatric hospital care are at 14 times greater risk of suicide within three months after their discharge, according to LeeAnne Cornyn, Director of Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. “That is unacceptable. We as a state have to do better. And Dani’s Place is how we do better,” Cornyn added.
“According the National Institute of Mental Health, one in five adults in the United States lives with mental illness and suicide is the second leading cause of death for those between the ages of 10 and 34. That has to change,” said Mr. Heck. “These aren’t just statistics. These are people. It could be your aunt, your neighbor, your co-worker, your friend -- or even your daughter,” he said.
The 17,000-square-foot, $11.4 million center will serve up to 16 residents at a time. It includes three wings with individual bedrooms, a kitchen for cooking and for developing various daily living skills, a meditation room, a workout room, group treatment rooms, an outpatient wing, and an internal open courtyard. Funding came from a unique collaboration of federal, state, local and private sources, including 33 Forever.
Toledo-based Unison Health will operate the facility. “I’ve been in the behavioral health space for 25 years and I have never seen this [combination of funding] before,” Unison CEO, Jeffrey DeLay said. “It is an incredible honor for Unison Health to be taking this now to the next stage of actual operations.”
Mrs. Heck said she never wanted suicide to be her daughter’s legacy, because “her life was worth so much more than that.” The idea of a way to honor her daughter was born in the days after Dani was released from the hospital, she said.
Sena Friedman, a Lucas County mental health board member and fundraising chair, captured the day’s significance, calling it “a bold dream becoming a healing reality. Dani’s Place is more than a facility. It’s the outcome of love and determination,” she said. “It’s the result of advocates, leaders, neighbors, organizations, working side by side, refusing to let people in crisis fall through the cracks. This building stands as a promise kept.”