PublicSource | News for a better Pittsburgh (https://www.publicsource.org/tag/mental-health/)
Despite little formal training, rabbis and faith leaders are often key resources in people’s struggles with mental health. ‘We must know our strengths and limits,’ Pittsburgh leaders say.
Editor's note: This story contains references to suicide and trauma. Compelling personal stories
told by the people living them. Every morning, I wake up to an alarm. The alarm is not always the same; sometimes it’s my Samuel L. Jackson Alexa app and sometimes it’s someone saying, “Daddy, wake up.”
Wait, did someone really call me “Dad?”
Since I was young, I’ve known that I wanted to grow up to become a comedian, an actor, or a musician. But I had no clue the kid who wore cowboy boots in the hood, the one who was called “not Black enough,” would ever be called “Dad.” The guy with depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, and PTSD is a dad?
Heather Bradley is the executive director of Pittsburgh Bereavement Doulas. From the Source Host Jourdan Hicks speaks with Heather about her 20-plus-year career as a doula, how the prevalence of poor prenatal experiences for women make her work essential, and the need to reduce the stigma around death and grief.
Before the pandemic, society was already experiencing a mental health crisis. Now, it’s even worse. A surge in demand, combined with too few providers and high treatment costs, can make accessing services challenging. Where traditional health systems are lagging, community groups are stepping in.
Finding a therapist who accepts Medicaid is difficult. Yet Pittsburgh-area therapists said they applied to accept Medicaid and were turned away.
One year into the pandemic, some faith communities in the Pittsburgh area aren’t returning to normal. They’re redefining it.
The absence of counseling and reliance on medication is a common occurrence in facilities like ACJ, where many incarcerated people would benefit from therapy, but problems like high population turnover, understaffing and lack of funding make delivering care complicated.
Compared to the other five largest PA counties, ACJ was far less transparent in providing its mental health policies. PublicSource appealed ACJ’s decision to the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, but the appeal was denied.
Some members of the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board are insisting on increased transparency and access to jail records. The issue, which was discussed at the board’s monthly meeting on Thursday, was prompted in part by PublicSource’s ongoing reporting on conditions at the jail.
Update (3/6/2021): At the March 4 Jail Oversight Board meeting, Warden Orlando Harper reported to the board about restraint chair use. It was a deviation from what he typically shares at these meetings in response to the board asking for more information on how the jail uses the device following the original PublicSource report below. He said the jail used the restraint chair 18 times in February. He promised that, at the April board meeting, he would provide the March count and include the number of times a person with a mental health condition is placed in the chair. Harper also agreed to show board members the restraint chair forms that are completed each time the chair is used. Jail leadership also provided the board the healthcare queues the board requested following a PublicSource investigation about medical treatment at the facility.
