Counseling & Mental Health · September 09, 2025

“Youth Mental Health First Aid is really about giving adults tools for how to listen and respond when a young person is having a hard time,” says Leah Marcus, who directs Youth Mental Health Services at Jewish Family Service.

Counseling & Mental Health · May 22, 2025

“I felt unanchored and lost. It became too much to carry my own laundry,” said Frances [a pseudonym to protect privacy], remembering. It was an awful time in her life: first, her husband had passed after a long illness, with Frances nursing him for the final two years. Then she had left her Indianapolis home and moved to Cincinnati to live with her son, since he wanted to help her—however within a month of her arrival, her son was diagnosed with terminal cancer....

Giving & Volunteering · July 15, 2024

There are at least three subjects that stir an appreciable passion in Leah and Gary Smith. The first is mental health. The second is giving back to the community. And the third is Jewish Family Service of Cincinnati (JFS). So it was only fitting when the Smiths chose to make a significant donation to JFS—providing them with naming rights for the agency’s counseling center waiting room. This waiting room serves a full spectrum of JFS’s mental health clients, from youth and teens to older adults.

Counseling & Mental Health · September 20, 2023

Over the past three decades, Leah Marcus, Director of Youth Mental Health Services at Jewish Family Service (JFS), has lost ten high school classmates to suicide or overdose. These tragic deaths underscore a disturbing reality that is increasing dramatically in the United States: death by suicide. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2021, 49,500 people took their own lives—the highest number the CDC has recorded.

Counseling & Mental Health · August 09, 2021

From modern-day stressors, like social media, 24/7 texting, and constant location tracking—to more traditional ones, like homework, family turmoil, and bullying—today’s youth are living with a volatile mixture of societal pressures. And though the human psyche is equipped to handle enormous stress, when these pressures are intense, incessant, or novel (think coronavirus), they can increase one’s risk for mental health disorders.

Counseling & Mental Health · December 18, 2020

“It was one of my worst times,” says Gloria (identities changed for privacy). The interview takes place in the dining room of her small, freestanding home. There are signs of love all around—lots of green plants in the windows—but dust piles on the flat surfaces, and the curtains are faded. We are talking about when she finally fought free from addiction to pain medicine. (This interview occurred pre-COVID-19; at the end we share how Gloria is faring during the pandemic.)