Preventive mental health services essential

Mental illness can be thought of as the elephant in the room. People do not want to talk about mental illness because of the stigma surrounding it, and that is a huge barrier to seeking and receiving services. With all these problems combined, when people do not get the preventive help they need, that can be a cause of a major mental health crisis.

Education about how mental illness affects individuals, how symptoms are manifested, what services are available and how to pay for services can go a long way in preventing major mental health crises in our communities and keeping people from being institutionalized in prison or a hospital as well as from becoming homeless.

A huge barrier to obtaining mental health services is education of what services are available in each county. Each county has different services available. Individuals do not have the resources to know what services are available, let alone how to access them. People who are not thinking clearly may not be able to do a web search for services. Case Management Services can be helpful to access services, but the general population does not even know how to obtain those services. There needs to be an easier way to learn what services are out there and how to pay for them.

The government and public may not see the need for Health and Human Services and mental health funding in the budget until it is too late, and with the isolation caused by the pandemic, preventive mental health care is even more important now. People may not think about the need for funding for mental health until after a major mental health crisis such as a mass shooting or increase in suicides, and people are likely to place the blame on mental illness, and the problem is not guns or mental illness. The problem is the lack of funding and preventive mental health services.

Jennifer Williams

Connellsville