Honey Bell-Bey, BA, OCPS

Honey Bell-Bey is Director of Adolescent Services at the Cleveland Urban Minority Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Outreach Program. She is also founder of several initiatives that use poetry as a bridge to build confidence and self-worth: Pint-Sized Poets for elementary schoolers, Elegant Ladies of Poetic Thought for young women and the renowned Distinguished Gentlemen of Spoken Word for young men. Honey is an Ohio Certified Drug Prevention Specialist (OCPS) and creator of How Well is your Well of Wellness: A review of SAMHSA’s Dimension of Wellness — a workshop series for social workers and mental health practitioners. She is a trainer for the Mandel Center at Case Western Reserve University, the Cuyahoga County Youth Work Institute, and a regional training liaison for the Institute for Human Services of Ohio. She is also a Master Trainer for Ohio Mental Health and Addiction Services (SAMHSA- Substance Abuse Prevention Skill Training). She has a Bachelor of Arts in broadcast production technology from historic Bethune-Cookman University. In January 2020, she was sworn in as the first official Poet Laureate of Cuyahoga County (Cleveland, Ohio). In May 2020, Honey was one of 23 national poets awarded an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship. She employs creative arts strategies to engage youth and adults. Her areas of expertise include substance use prevention, youth engagement, innovative practices, and culture and the integration of science.