In 2011, Pennsylvania made a promise. Everyone living in a psychiatric state hospital would come home.
The promise was a transformed mental health system, where getting care for depression, or bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia would be like getting care for bronchitis, or lupus, or cancer.
But tucked within that plan was a dire warning against a darker future for people with severe mental illnesses should the commonwealth fail: homelessness, unemployment, relapse, and incarceration.
It is this premonition, not the promise, that has become reality in Pennsylvania.
Thirty years of choices by seven governors, hundreds of legislators, and countless local officials have delivered us to this moment, where thousands of Pennsylvanians with serious mental health conditions face impossible choices instead of easily accessible care.
For over two years, reporter Danielle Ohl has followed this issue, and collected stories from families, health care providers, social workers, and others – far more than could fit in her published stories.
So now, Spotlight PA is empowering these people to tell you in their own words how the state’s failure directly affected their lives.
Join us July 30 at Scranton’s Albright Memorial Library for this live, storytelling event.
This event is supported by the Pulitzer Center.
What: Spotlight PA is hosting a live storytelling event and panel on Pennsylvania’s mental health systems. Special guests who have experience with the state’s system will share their perspectives. The event will also feature a panel of experts to discuss how we got here and what the future of mental health care in Pennsylvania might hold.
Who: Spotlight PA is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom covering urgent issues in Pennsylvania and providing public service and investigative journalism.
Host: Danielle Ohl, Spotlight PA’s justice reporter, who has been covering the intersection of mental health and the criminal justice system for more than three years.
Expert panelists will include:
Joan Erney, former deputy secretary of the Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services
Molly Candon, PhD, Asst. Professor at the Penn Center for Mental Health.
Louis Bianco, registered nurse and peer specialist, program director of NAMI Perry and Cumberland Counties
Storytellers will include Pennsylvanians from York, Allegheny, Lancaster and Philadelphia with experience as parents, advocates, and patients navigating Pennsylvania’s mental health system.
Resource tables will include Scranton Counseling; Disability Rights Pennsylvania; and NAMI Northeast Pennsylvania.
When: Thursday, July 30th from 5-8 p.m. EST
Where: Albright Memorial Library, 500 Vine St, Scranton, PA 18509
There is street metered parking available. There are also two garages close by: the Adams Plaza Parking (425 Adams Ave, Scranton, PA 18510) and the City of Scranton parking garages.