Creating a legacy of caring for community mental health
Mental Health Association in Westmoreland County
… a history of change
…present in the community
… for a future of hope.
Mental health advocacy … yesterday, today, tomorrow.
In 1965 a Westmoreland County newspaper featured a series entitled “Study in Despair.” The stories revealed the horrific neglect of persons suffering from mental illness, warehoused in overcrowded state hospitals, left to suffer in appalling conditions, often while still enduring symptoms of their illnesses. Harried workers complained of the conditions, beseeching the community to recognize that this kind of treatment was inhumane, unsuitable and sometimes dangerous. We needed someone to care.
It was mental health advocacy that changed all that. Bands of citizens joined together to say, “we can and must do better.” One such band was the Mental Health Association in Westmoreland County. Since our humble beginnings in 1959, and incorporation in 1964, the agency has had a solid reputation of advocacy and quality service provision: promoting well-being, improving existing services, collaborating with providers, providing education and training, influencing public policy and encouraging new services. We have been involved in the development of hallmark community services, including the Latrobe Area Hospital Mental Health Center in 1967 and the Threshold housing program in 1970. The MHA has been there, always questioning, always enlightening, always pushing for the promise of new research, treatment, empowerment and peer support options.
What has often not kept pace with science and research are attitudes and understanding for people living with mental illnesses. Apathy and stigma still prevent our communities from making appropriate investments in community mental health. And today’s issues are pressing: the number of children with serious emotional disturbances languishing in the juvenile justice system, the need for more and better specialized services for those suffering from complex or co-occurring disorders, the lack of access to care in a strained, overburdened and underfunded system operating in an era of managed care.
Now, you can be a part of this legacy of caring. Help ensure that mental health advocacy and education will always be there… disseminating the newest, most innovative information about mental health and mental illness and constantly calling upon policy makers to remember that people living with mental illness are people first.
The MHA offers a number of ways to give including planned and deferred giving mechanisms and current support through memberships. In addition, we encourage you to consider a gift that focuses on your particular passion in the vast arena of mental health advocacy.
Public Education
Two conclusions of 1999’s Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General were the need to overcome stigma and improve public awareness of effective treatment. Stigma impedes people from seeking help and gives insurers tacit approval to restrict coverage for mental health services in ways that would not be tolerated for other illnesses. All human services professionals have a need to be better informed about mental health resources in their area. Further, people in all aspects of community life encounter mental health problems: in the workplace, in the faith community and certainly in the medical community.
The MHA provides broad based public outreach and education about specific mental illnesses to demystify mental health problems and replace myths and misconceptions with facts. Under the theme Do you know how to help? the MHA provides information about signs and symptoms of various mental health disorders as well as treatment options and other resources such as peer and family support for civic, church and social groups. Because this is a vibrant, dynamic field, the news is always changing. We strive to keep the community dialogue alive. There are always new challenges and breakthroughs that have to be known by more than just the mental health community, and we get it there.
A database tracks the impact of these activities, which enables us to have a higher level of sophistication in reporting back to program participants, to funders and to community partners.
Some examples of specific public education mechanisms include:
v Speakers’ Bureau - volunteers and agency staff provide speakers for all kinds of groups throughout Westmoreland County on topics ranging from specific disorders, to the history of mental health treatment, to wellness and mental health promotion information (stress management) to current advocacy issues and more.
v Dialogue for Recovery - using materials developed by the National Mental Health Association, we provide training for persons using mental health services on how to make the best use of their treatment options. The materials are also used to promote healthy dialogue from the provider perspective as well.
v Mind Matters - the agency newsletter is distributed twice a year to thousands of employers, churches, schools/educators, medical professionals and others. Often featuring personal stories written by courageous volunteers, the newsletter highlights the challenges and victories of living with mental illness while providing concrete information about current mental health issues and local resources.
v On Line newsletter - this new resource focuses on mental health issues for the workplace, providing employers with information about the Americans with Disabilities Act, stress management, child and family mental health and more.
v Media outreach - whether by responding to negative or inaccurate mental health coverage, enabling people with mental illness to share their stories of recovery or speaking out about trauma, school violence and other issues, the agency makes millions of media impressions annually (4.8 million in 2001 alone). We partner with local and regional media outlets to use media as a tool for delivering a message of hope.
v Target audience trainings - the agency works closely with target audiences to have them help us design trainings based on what they feel they need to know about mental health and substance abuse issues. We have utilized pre-training surveys to develop strategic sessions for primary care and other medical providers, juvenile justice and other youth service workers, and annual meeting target audiences.
Children’s Mental Health
The MHA recognizes a special set of considerations for children’s mental health issues. Children’s mental health is a relatively young field, and we have much to learn about how to best help children who have serious emotional disturbances. A full array of high quality, seamless mental health services is still not accessible to all children. Failing to appropriately identify and respond to children’s mental health issues early on leaves kids at risk for substance abuse, school failure and involvement with the juvenile justice system.
According to the Surgeon General’s report, 70% of children and adolescents in need of treatment do not receive mental health services. States and communities have sweeping mandates to serve children and adolescents in schools, child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Many of these programs lack the expertise to recognize, refer or treat mental health problems that trigger these mandated services. When they do recognize problems, some of the needed services are paid for by Medicaid, or by local MH/MR funds, but some are not.
In addition to the MHA Parent/Child Advocates who work with parents who have a child with a mental health problem in schools, treatment settings and courts, we promote a better understanding and community response to children’s mental health needs through advocacy and education. We also believe that investing in every child’s mental health today builds coping skills and resilience for the communities of tomorrow.
Some of our special children’s mental health programming includes:
v Outreach and education to schools -we have worked extensively with guidance counselors and nurses, and in some cases teachers and administrators. Not only do we provide information about signs and symptoms of disorders, treatment options and resource listings, we gather information from our audience members. We record the comments and questions of program participants so that we can share with policy makers the special concerns of people working with special needs kids in an underfunded system.
v Outreach and education to medical settings - working with pediatricians, family practice and primary care physicians, we utilize similar approaches and techniques for this audience as we do with educators.
v Kid Cares - each issue of the MHA newsletter features a special section dedicated to children’s mental health issues.
v Annual Meeting - a track of workshops at the MHA annual meeting and conference targets schools and educators with such topics as children’s mental health disorders, psychotropic medications, mental health and juvenile justice, bullying and post-traumatic stress disorder.
v Specialized training - strategic outreach to and trainings for the juvenile justice system have occurred over the last several years, as a response to the preponderance of children with mental health problems involved with those systems.
Systems Advocacy
We believe that advocacy and education are interconnected. The Surgeon General’s report echoes this belief with these goals: ensuring the supply of mental health services and providers, ensuring the delivery of state-of-the-art treatments and reducing finan