MANSFIELD — Three community agencies want to provide immediate help to grieving families and individuals after a traumatic loss.
Bob Ball, chief investigator for the Richland County Coroner’s Office, said his office is working with Scott Basilone at the Richland County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board and Catalyst Life Services.
“What we want to do is — especially on our traumatic cases like suicides and drug overdoses — facilitate a response team to go and start working with those families,” Ball told the Richland County Board of Commissioners on Tuesday.
Randi Ritchey, administrative assistant for the coroner’s office, said they’ve handled 14 suicide cases in 2025.
Whether it be counseling or another form of service(s), Ball said the goal is for this response team to be people who can “stand beside” grieving families.
In most of the suicides the coroner’s office responds to, Ball said families are often reluctant to reach out for help.
“They go for a period of time, families are there (and) say, ‘We’ll be here for you,’ and three weeks later the families go back to their own lives,” he said. “This survivor loss team would make contact with a family immediately, especially the spouses.”
After contact is made with a family, the next step would involve Catalyst — a private non-profit outpatient center providing comprehensive services to adults and children.
“The families that are losing their loved ones, especially mothers and fathers losing their children, we definitely need to connect with them,” Ball said.
The coroner’s office has included an ask for $4,000 for this response team in its 2026 budget, which was discussed with commissioners during Thursday’s meeting.
Commissioner Tony Vero asked Ball what the $4,000 would be used for. Ball responded that it would go toward the gas needed for this team to respond.
“They’re (survivor loss team) going to be volunteers. We would like to give them money for gas and now we’ve got to figure out how to do that,” Ball said.
Vero asked if the coroner’s office had vetted the legalities related to this idea with the Richland County Prosecutor’s Office yet, which Ball responded it had not.
Ritchey said they wanted to include the $4,000 estimate in their budget to at least give commissioners an insight into what the office is doing.
“It may be a program that Catalyst may be able to run, period,” Ball told commissioners. “That’s an option. We’re just trying to step it up to do that.”