Community Partnership Spotlight: Mental Health America of Lancaster County

Each month, LG Health highlights one of our valued partners. Together, we strengthen the health of our community in ways impossible to do alone.

What would you do if a friend fell right in front of you, hitting her head?
 
Scooter Haase, Executive Director of Mental Health America of Lancaster County, recently asked – and answered -- this question.
 
“If you’ve had first aid training, you’d administer some until the ambulance came,” Haase said. “You’d do what you can to get her help. Why isn’t it the same for our friends with mental illness?”
 
MHALC offers a range of services, including a Wellness Academy, support groups, mental health first aid classes, suicide prevention training, educational programs, and most recently, support to incarcerated individuals in Lancaster County Prison.
 
LG Health also provides valuable information on mental health issues, treatment and support on its Health Hub.
 
“One in four of us will be diagnosed with mental illness this year,” Haase went on to say. “But half of us won’t get help, and that’s unconscionable. We don’t leave people with cancer to carry on alone, do we?”
 
According to Haase, education and training are the keys to helping people live better lives with mental illness and making our communities stronger. But it takes everyone, he said.
 
Mental illness hits the poor particularly hard, said Haase, noting that it takes one month to get an appointment with a psychiatrist in Lancaster County – and even longer for people without insurance.
 
LG Health is pleased to work with MHALC in the Let’s Talk, Lancaster Coalition to make a difference with the support of the United Way of Lancaster.