{"id":223192,"date":"2026-06-19T14:01:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T14:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/223192\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T14:01:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T14:01:16","slug":"spotlight-pa-event-the-past-present-and-future-of-pennsylvanias-mental-health-care-systems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/223192\/","title":{"rendered":"Spotlight PA Event: The past, present, and future of Pennsylvania\u2019s mental health care systems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Spotlight PA<\/a>\u00a0is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania.\u00a0Sign up for our free newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 2011, Pennsylvania made a promise. Everyone living in a psychiatric state hospital would come home.<\/p>\n

The promise was a transformed mental health system, where getting care for depression, or bipolar\u00a0disorder, or schizophrenia would be like getting care for bronchitis, or lupus, or cancer.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

It is this premonition, not the promise, that has become reality in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

For over two years, reporter Danielle Ohl has followed this issue, and collected stories from families, health care providers, social workers, and others \u2013 far more than could fit in her published stories.<\/p>\n

So now, Spotlight PA is empowering these people to tell you in their own words how the state\u2019s failure directly affected their lives.<\/p>\n

Join us July 30 at Scranton\u2019s Albright Memorial Library for this live, storytelling event.<\/p>\n

Register for the event here.<\/a><\/p>\n

This event is supported by the\u00a0Pulitzer Center<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What:\u00a0Spotlight PA is hosting a live storytelling event and panel on Pennsylvania\u2019s mental health systems. Special guests who have experience with the state\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Who:\u00a0Spotlight PA<\/a>\u00a0is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom covering urgent issues in Pennsylvania and providing public service and investigative journalism.<\/p>\n

Host: Danielle Ohl, Spotlight PA\u2019s justice reporter,\u00a0who has been covering the intersection of mental health and the criminal justice system for more than three years.<\/a><\/p>\n

Expert panelists will include:<\/p>\n

Joan Erney, former deputy secretary of the Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services<\/p>\n

Molly Candon, PhD, Asst. Professor at the Penn Center for Mental Health.<\/p>\n

Louis Bianco, registered nurse and peer specialist, program director of NAMI Perry and Cumberland Counties<\/p>\n

Storytellers will include\u00a0Pennsylvanians from York, Allegheny, Lancaster and Philadelphia with experience as parents, advocates, and patients navigating Pennsylvania\u2019s mental health system.<\/p>\n

Resource tables will include\u00a0Scranton Counseling; Disability Rights Pennsylvania; and NAMI Northeast Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

When:\u00a0Thursday, July 30th from 5-8 p.m. EST<\/p>\n

Where:\u00a0Albright Memorial Library, 500 Vine St, Scranton, PA 18509<\/p>\n

There is street metered parking available. There are also two garages close by: the\u00a0Adams Plaza Parking\u00a0(425 Adams Ave, Scranton, PA 18510) and the\u00a0City of Scranton parking garages<\/a>.<\/p>\n

BEFORE YOU GO\u2026\u00a0If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at\u00a0spotlightpa.org\/donate<\/a>. Spotlight PA is funded by\u00a0foundations and readers like you<\/a>\u00a0who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to WTAJ – www.wtaj.com. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Spotlight PA\u00a0is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[97026,97028,91624,47,97025,52815,28,30,29,178,1478,97027],"class_list":["post-223192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-bipolar-disorder","tag-danielle-ohl","tag-health-care-providers","tag-mental-health","tag-mental-health-systems","tag-mental-illnesses","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-scranton","tag-spotlight-pa","tag-storytelling-event"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}