T-L Photo/GAGE VOTA Carlos Ball, left, who is incarcerated at Belmont County Correctional Institute, holds his daughter Carleigha Ball, as his wife Amy Ball holds a rock the family painted during the facility’s annual family engagement event.

ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Belmont County Correctional Institute held its annual family engagement event where incarcerated individuals’ families were able to meet with the facility’s mental health providers.

Chris Aubrey, a behavioral health provider supervisor, said that the event helps educate families of the incarcerated individuals while they visit their loved ones at the facility. He added that the event is an effort for those families to connect and gain support with the mental health providers as they work through the hardships of having a loved one incarcerated.

“Families get to see their loved ones and meet the mental health team that they interact with. It provides them some hope, more importantly, than anything,” Aubrey said.

He added that the prison’s mental health department operates as an on campus outpatient clinic.

“We offer individual therapy, group therapy, and medication management,” he said. “We also offer short term crisis intervention, should there be a crisis.”

Aubrey added that his department currently has a caseload of 720 individuals and provides mental health medication for more than 400 individuals.

Wednesday’s event had food and drinks provided. It also gave the mental health staff the ability to interact directly with the families.

“The family can ask questions if there’s any issues. So they get to interact directly with their mental health provider and get to know that provider if there’s any issues,” Aubrey said.

One of the many incarcerated individuals involved in the facility’s mental health program is Carlos Ball. Ball’s wife Amy and daughter Carleigha Ball and he spent the day visiting, painting rocks, and playing hide and seek.

Ball is currently seven years into a 10-year sentence for trafficking drugs. He said that he is using his time by being involved in various programs similar to the mental health program to better himself.

“I committed a crime. I know what I did, and I accept that. So that’s how I look at it. Now I gotta do what I gotta do,” Ball said.

“I’m a burn survivor, so that’s how I end up having mental problems and from my burns. And during the process of dealing with my burns, I was on pain medication, and was also selling those drugs,” Ball said. “Instead of abusing my pain meds, I was a lightweight messing with my pills so I was selling them.”

Ball’s wife Amy said that she believes the program has significantly helped him because when he went into prison he wasn’t as open to mental health help but now is an advocate for mental health programs.

“This mental health program here has helped me out a lot, because I had a lot of problems prior to getting locked up and it helped me reach my full potential,” Ball said.

He added that the program has weekly meetings and when he first started attending the meetings he wasn’t too much of an active participant because he’s a private person.

“I used to be quiet, I didn’t want anybody to know my business. But as I was starting to listen to people talk about their business, I started talking about mine,” he said. “It’s good to help you open up and keep your mind good. You can go in there and talk, and don’t have to worry about everything getting out, because everybody keeps their business to themselves.”

He added that obviously prison isn’t where he wants to be but the staff is helpful with the incarcerated individuals.

“I’m not saying prison is a place you want to be, but this is not a bad place. I’ve been treated pretty well, but I don’t put myself out there to get in trouble either,” he said.

Ball added that in January he will have served 75% of his time and will be able to file for a judiciary review.