For nearly 50 years, Oneida, Vilas, and Forest Counties pooled resources to provide services through the Human Service Center.
These were services related to mental health and substance use.
Other services like Child Protective Services, ADRC, and Food Share fell under each counties social services department.
Starting January 1st, those will no longer be separate departments with all those services falling under each counties Human Service Department.
Mary Rideout is the current Oneida County Social Services Director and Interim Human Service Center Director until January 1st when she will officially be Director of the Oneida County Human Service Department.
She says many counties in Wisconsin have human service departments and this change had been talked about for years.
“I think this time it just became critical that we are operating as one county, one Human Service Department, so that we're doing our long range planning, we're doing our coordination, we're collaborating together as one department,” said Rideout. “I think that really the structure was making that more difficult. I think everyone agreed, or at least most people agreed, that changing the structure may make that more possible and easier to do so.”
This transition has been in the works for more than a year.
Vilas and Forest Counties have the option to contract with Oneida County for the behavioral health services that were previously under the Human Service Center.
“The structure now really gives us a lot of flexibility to do what we need to get done for our counties,” said Rideout.
In January, one staff member will be transitioning to work in Eagle River at the Vilas County Human Service Department in emergency services.
Rideout says they want to make sure some staff is located in Vilas and Forest Counties. Most of the people and services are located in Rhinelander.
Priorities for Oneida County Human Service Department
With this change, the Human Service Department will become the largest department in Oneida County with more than 100 employees.
Rideout says a big priority will be a focus on staffing to help keep wait times for services down.
“I think anybody knows, that has to hire people, it's gotten a lot more difficult through the years. So really, I think the major focus for the Human Service Department is going to have to be on staff retention and recruiting and retaining people, good people to do the work,” said Rideout. “We want to provide in-community service as much as we can.”
Rideout says another priority for the Human Service Department will be more in-person services.
Since the pandemic, a lot of assessments have been done via telephone.
In January, they’ll be moving to in-person screening during the daytime for crisis services for mental health or substance use with a goal of 24/7 in-person screening available later in 2025.
The funding structure for these services will also change.
Previously, the three counties allowed for any of their state or federal allocations to go directly to the Human Service Center.
Going forward, each county will get its separate funding and then Oneida County will bill the counties for the services provided.
While there may be a lot of structural changes happening, Rideout is hopeful that the transition won’t be noticeable to people receiving the services.
“We're hoping that really, besides the change in letterhead, clients and people that are using our services really don't notice,” said Rideout.
Phone numbers and addresses are staying the same.
Services are split between the Human Service Center building on Timber Drive, the ADRC and Health Department building near Trig’s, and offices in the Oneida County Courthouse.
“We just don't want disruption in any client services. That's been our main focus,” said Rideout. “We can deal with accounting and billing and fixing all those things as we go along, just as long as services are being provided into the new year.”
