Cultural Competency
"Every person with a serious mental illness and/or addictive disease, and every child and adolescent who abuses substances and/or has a serious emotional disturbance will have the opportunity for growth, recovery and inclusion in their community, have access to treatment and supports of their choice, and enjoy a quality of life that includes family and friends."
"The PA Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, in collaboration with other appropriate state offices, will ensure local access to a comprehensive array of quality mental health and substance abuse services that are reflective of the needs of Pennsylvania citizens, effectively managed and coordinated and responsive to a dynamic and changing healthcare environment."
Learn more about the cultural competency initiative.
A Call for Change
"During the past decade, many voices have risen to challenge some of the basic assumptions about mental illness and its impact on the lives of individuals and their families. People with serious mental illnesses do, in fact, recover. Some become fully symptom-free with time, while others live rich and fulfilling lives while still experiencing some psychiatric problems. The amalgamation of these voices has created what is now known as the 'recovery movement' in mental health."
"The recovery movement is having an impact on mental health systems at all levels by challenging mental health providers, administrators, policy-makers, funders, workers, and the people who experience mental health problems and their families to look at how negative or limiting assumptions are driving approaches to services, to funding, to treatment, to policies, and ultimately to the course of individual lives. The federal government has issued a call for sweeping transformation of the mental health service system throughout the United States. In Pennsylvania, A Call for Change: Toward a Recovery-Oriented Mental Health Service System (pdf file), carries this same mandate for change into the Commonwealth."
Read A Call For Change, a publication of the Pennsylvania Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services.