{"id":31511,"date":"2025-11-03T17:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T17:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/31511\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T17:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T17:31:10","slug":"peace-organizes-to-seek-mental-health-progress-in-tallahassee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/31511\/","title":{"rendered":"PEACE organizes to seek mental health progress in Tallahassee"},"content":{"rendered":"

The faith-based network will also focus on social justice in immigration.<\/p>\n

\"PEACEState Sen. Mack Bernard, standing, announces to PEACE members that he and state Sen. Lori Berman will pursue the group\u2019s mental health goal. From left, the Health Care District\u2019s Dr. Courtney Phillips, County Clerk Mike Caruso, Berman and state Rep. Debra Tendrich. (Photo: Carolyn DiPaolo\/Stet)<\/p>\n

A Palm Beach County social justice organization is part of a growing network dedicated to improving access to mental health services.<\/p>\n

PEACE<\/a> members are focused on community issues including the county\u2019s teams of medical professionals and social workers who step in when severely mentally ill people are in crisis.<\/p>\n

The faith-based organization contends that the teams are severely understaffed.<\/p>\n

Last week, about 300 members of PEACE heard from state and county leaders who said they share their goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our biggest takeaway is that we have people in Palm Beach County on all levels wanting to address this,\u201d PEACE associate organizer Megan Sease told Stet News after the organization\u2019s Oct. 27 Community Problems Assembly<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

PEACE has appealed to the state Department of Children and Families to expand the teams, and now members are moving on to the state Legislature.<\/p>\n

State Sens. Mack Bernard and Lori Berman, both Democrats from Palm Beach County, committed to the group that they will pursue legislation to increase the staffing of Palm Beach County\u2019s mental health crisis teams.<\/p>\n

\"PEACEPEACE members at the Oct. 27 Community Problems Assembly at Lake Worth United Church of Christ in Lake Worth Beach. (Photo: Tim McKusker for PEACE)<\/p>\n

Coming up: Air traffic control<\/p>\n

PEACE leaders recently connected with the Health Care District, which is proposing a reconfiguration of mental health care in Palm Beach County.<\/p>\n

Dr. Courtney Phillips<\/a>, the district\u2019s vice president of behavioral health, shared with PEACE members the district\u2019s plans for a mental health crisis stabilization center<\/a> to open by 2029. She described it as kind of an air traffic control to help people manage their illness. The budget for the project is $145 million.<\/p>\n

Phillips emphasized there are places to turn now, including the Health Care District\u2019s outpatient mental health clinic in Mangonia Park, which is open from 7 am to 7 pm seven days a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou do not need to go to the hospital,\u201d Phillips said. \u201cYou do not need to know if the loved one you\u2019re taking care of, or yourself, needs anything. You just have to show up. And we\u2019ll figure that out. That\u2019s going to be the ethos of our new facility.\u201d<\/p>\n

PEACE\u2019s reach<\/p>\n

PEACE was founded in 1991 and is made up of 25 congregations<\/a> representing a dozen belief systems in Palm Beach County. Each year, it calls out leaders to support its priorities.<\/p>\n

For the first time, members will travel to Tallahassee to lobby for the expansion of the mental health crisis teams. Forty members will board a bus bound for the state capital in mid-November.<\/p>\n

But mental health improvements are not all PEACE will pursue. Added to the docket for the group is immigration, the assemblage decided on Oct. 27.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI think people have been frustrated,\u201d PEACE organizer Paige Shortsleeves told Stet News. \u201cOur members have gone to protests on their own. They\u2019re asking \u2018What do I do now? How do I get connected now?\u2019 We\u2019ve had a lot of members become part of PEACE because it\u2019s, \u2018How can I keep doing something?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The decision to focus on social justice in immigration follows months of house meetings where members shared stories about community issues they want PEACE to tackle. They also considered a focus on health care and the cost of living in Palm Beach County.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll use our stories to really guide what direction we go,\u201d Shortsleeves said. \u201cBut we also will begin meeting with local nonprofits and experts and professors and organizations to see what piece of the puzzle we can address.\u201d<\/p>\n

The work all leads to the organization\u2019s signature meeting each year, PEACE Nehemiah Action, where church leaders put public officials on the spot to commit to PEACE\u2019s cause.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The meeting is scheduled for 7 pm March 24 at Jupiter First Church.<\/p>\n

\"Carolyn<\/p>\n

I am a co-founder, writer and editor for Stet News. I am also a former senior editor at The Palm Beach Post. For 20 years, I oversaw some of the most consequential stories published by the paper, including the \u201cCorruption County\u201d reporting project that led to multiple arrests of elected officials. I am a member of the Leadership Palm Beach County Class of 2013. I live in West Palm Beach with my husband, Bill DiPaolo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The faith-based network will also focus on social justice in immigration. State Sen. Mack Bernard, standing, announces to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[22516,1841,4458,9151,557,21543,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-31511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-health-care-district-of-palm-beach-county","tag-immigration","tag-lake-worth-beach","tag-mental-health-care","tag-palm-beach-county","tag-peace","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}