Story by Danielle Ohl of Spotlight PA<\/p>\n
Spotlight PA<\/a> is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative and public-service journalism that holds power to account and drives positive change in Pennsylvania. Sign up for our free newsletters<\/a>.<\/p>\n This story first appeared in The Investigator, a weekly newsletter by Spotlight PA featuring the best investigative and accountability journalism from across Pennsylvania. Sign up for free here.<\/a><\/p>\n When you work on one story for two years, you can lose the perspective you had as a newcomer.<\/p>\n You\u2019ve checked every fact, scrutinized every word. You think there\u2019s no possible way someone could think of a question you haven\u2019t already asked or have a reaction you haven\u2019t already anticipated. <\/p>\n Then, you hit publish.<\/p>\n In July, Spotlight PA published the first part of my investigation<\/a> into Pennsylvania\u2019s mental health system. The piece tells the story of Sue \u2014 a mother whose son Robert has struggled for years with a serious mental illness \u2014 as a way of grounding the other reporting, which exposes more than 30 years of failed promises from state officials to build a robust, community-based mental health system.<\/p>\n I anticipated some of the responses I received from police officers, patients, doctors, former state officials \u2014 all of whom affirmed the story we published matched their experience with the system.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t expect the number one question I received from family and friends: What happened to Robert?<\/p>\n It seems obvious to me now that readers would have more questions about Sue and Robert, the real people I chose to anchor my reporting, than the wonkier aspects of state governance and funding.<\/p>\n If you have the same question, I\u2019m sorry to say I don\u2019t have an uplifting answer.<\/p>\n Sue and Robert are in largely the same place now, two years after the events of the story. Sue lives in the same house where she saved her son from ending his life.<\/p>\n She has good days and bad days, like we all do. She sees her grandchild, Robert\u2019s daughter, and celebrates the milestones of her life. But she doesn\u2019t see Robert, and she doesn\u2019t always know where he is.<\/p>\n Last she heard, he is in another state, living at a homeless shelter.<\/p>\n I can appreciate that readers are hopeful for happy endings in stories like these. There\u2019s something very human about expecting or needing an encouraging conclusion to so much strife and loss. But the truth is, Sue and Robert\u2019s story isn\u2019t happy because the system doesn\u2019t make happiness possible.<\/p>\n But in telling their story, I hope to move people in power to make the changes necessary for better endings.<\/p>\n BEFORE YOU GO\u2026 If you learned something from this article, pay it forward and contribute to Spotlight PA at spotlightpa.org\/donate<\/a>. Spotlight PA is funded by foundations and readers like you<\/a> who are committed to accountability journalism that gets results.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Story by Danielle Ohl of Spotlight PA Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan, and nonprofit newsroom producing investigative…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124965,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[97,259,260],"class_list":{"0":"post-124964","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124964\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}