Starting in September, Keystone Behavioral Health will begin a pilot program to help patients through behavioral health mentoring. This new program aims to help 12 to 15 adults with advocacy and mentoring to help decrease the percentage of missed appointments, particularly their first scheduled behavioral health appointment. This program is made possible by a grant from the Summit Endowment.
Keystone will partner with Youth Advocate Programs, Inc. (YAP) to develop the Peer Partner Program where the patients will be assigned a “peer buddy” from YAP. “This advocate will hopefully develop a relationship with one of our behavioral health patients and encourage this patient to attend all scheduled appointments with his or her psychiatrist and therapists as well as take and prescribed medications, ” Joanne Cochran, president and CEO of Keystone Health, said. “Many residents of our community lack an adequate support system. Through this grant, Summit has enabled Keystone to provide a specified number of behavioral health patients with an individual to care about them and to encourage them to take better care of themselves,” Cochran said.
Dr. Kawish Garg, interim medical director of Keystone Behavioral Health, said the grant will have a positive effect on our community. “With the help of this grant, we will find ways to aid in reducing barriers for people seeking mental health help. As we know, seeking mental health help is considered a stigma in our society, which develops a sense of hesitancy in our community and many live their lives struggling with it for years,” he said.
In addition to stigmas associated with mental health, many people struggle with getting transportation to an appointment, coordinating care, the referral process, and the unknown of what to expect at an appointment. Even the anxiety over meeting a new physician or not having enough to eat at home can affect whether people attend scheduled appointments. “We are partnering with the Youth Advocacy Program to test if we can eliminate some of these barriers and promote mental health in the community,” Dr. Garg said. “These kind of grants are very important for us as we can help the needy and learn from our projects what needs to be changed or done further to improve mental health care access for the community.”
For more information about Keystone Behavioral Health, visit www.keystonebehavioralhealth.org.
