PICKAWAY – Local PARS has appointed a new director to help guide it into the future
Pickaway County Recovery Services is an Outpatient, Intensive Outpatient, and Residential service for people who struggle with alcohol and drug substance abuse. The service has been in operation since 1978 and serves not only Pickaway county, but Fayette, Fairfield, and Muskingum Counties.
Last week Executive Director Jonathan Bennett announced that he was stepping down after 11 years and was helping to promote another into his position.
“Well with Pars, we there’s been a lot of challenges for the behavioral health industry in the last several years, Medicaid redesign, behavioral health care changes, and Covid was a huge challenge.”
Bennett says that he feels he’s leaving PARS in the Capable hands of Leah J. Raymer, who was selected by the board as his replacement.
“I did not choose my replacement,” said Bennett, “I left that in the capable hands of the board, but I certainly 100% agree with Leah and stand behind that. They know I stand behind Leah and the other candidates, I trust the board, I trust that process.”
The board members said that they interviewed several people, but Leah had the best credentials on paper.
“Leah had the best recommendations from our partner agencies and the community referrals and she had letters from judges and probation departments and she impressed us with her leadership. Since 2013 Raymer has served at PARS in various Capacities most recently as overseeing operations for Circleville’s PARS, Fayette Recovery Center (FRC), Lancaster Recovery Services (LRS) and PARS’ corrections facilities programs: RISE (Pickaway County) and STAND (Fayette County).”
We are confident in Leah’s vision as well for PARS for the future programs she wants to not only implement but to improve upon. We really feel confident that Leah will be a good Leader for the future.”
Raymer told Sciotopost that she started with PARS in 2013.
“I was hired as a residential counselor, while I was still in college. I was in our residential for two and a half years, I completed my bachelor’s degree at Ohio Christian University, and pass my state test. Then I transferred to outpatient in our Fayette county region, and then I was transferred to our Pickaway, county outpatient, and then I became Site Manager here at PARS outpatient. Then I was asked to be the clinical curriculum program developer, where I created several programs that we have a Pars and the curriculums to go along with those. Then I was asked to be the outpatient director, so I managed our two job programs and our three outpatient locations, and now this.”
“I’ve never thought about leaving PARS in almost 10 years, my goal, when I started in this field was to serve in the community that I lived in and work on helping people better their lives. My passion is for our clients. I have a counselor at heart, and that’s always going to be my primary concern is what is best for our client own. How can we do the best work for our clients? But yeah, I think as far as Pars, I mean, we’ve always had good employees here we have, we work together as a family.”
Bennett says that her job will start internally and really evaluate our the services that we provide, and interview the staff to see how the company is taking care of them. The next step is Carf National Accreditation, then we will focus on improving the care system the best that we can and look for new opportunities to grow recovery housing program in the area.
PARS currently employs around eighty people in the area and serve 400 clients in four counties. They offer substance abuse and mental health counseling. serve adults and juveniles. They offer prevention services. They have a visitation center and recovery housing. PARS also has two jail programs in Fayette County and Pickaway County where they provide treatment inside those walls.
