Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Secretary Dr. Val Arkoosh visited Keystone Health on Monday to highlight Governor Josh Shapiro’s proposed 2026-27 budget investment.<\/p>\n
The budget is aimed at expanding behavioral health services and strengthening the state’s mental health workforce.<\/p>\n
During the visit, Arkoosh toured Keystone Health’s 988 Suicide and Crisis lifeline call center and behavioral health crisis walk-in center, meeting with staff to discuss the administration’s efforts to improve access to mental health care across the commonwealth.<\/p>\n
“They are able to divert people from going to the emergency room or, in some cases, having to call the police because [with] over 90% of those calls, they can handle on the phone and set up next steps and additional resources for those individuals,” Arkoosh said.<\/p>\n
The proposed budget includes $10 million in first-ever dedicated state funding for Pennsylvania’s 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, which supports a network of 14 call centers statewide. According to the Shapiro administration, the funding would enhance crisis intervention services, expand access to mental health resources and help maintain professional, around-the-clock staffing.<\/p>\n
The budget also includes $5 million to support behavioral health crisis walk-in centers, prioritizing regions with limited access to immediate, in-person mental health care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“988 is so important because we are usually the last call,” Olivia Downing, a crisis intervention specialist, said. “They have tried everything else, they have made all the appointments for themselves, they have been rejected from other places or they are just having a really bad day. We are here to remind you that it is just a bad day and not a bad forever.”<\/p>\n
State officials say the investment would strengthen partnerships among hospitals, community behavioral health providers and local emergency responders while ensuring residents can receive timely care close to home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania Department of Human Services Secretary Dr. Val Arkoosh visited Keystone Health on Monday to highlight Governor Josh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":253419,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[98893,108115,33,47,3650,28,5714,30,29,20998],"class_list":["post-253418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-behavioral-health-services","tag-crisis-intervention","tag-josh-shapiro","tag-mental-health","tag-mental-health-care","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-department-of-human-services","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-val-arkoosh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253418","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=253418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253418\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}