Rachel McDevitt / WITF
Grant provides free trauma screening in Lebanon County
Several social services groups will train counselors on diagnosing and treating trauma-related mental health issues.
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Alanna Elder/WITF
Rachel McDevitt / WITF
(Lebanon) — Several community organizations are using money from a two-year state grant to address trauma and prevent violence in families and communities.
The grant, which totals about $300,000, comes from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency. Empower the Mind, a mental health provider based in Lebanon and Pottsville, is using some of the funding to screen people for symptoms of trauma, and in more severe cases, treat them.
Ali Perrotto, CEO of the Sexual Assault Resource and Counseling Center, said the county already had free programs for children or survivors of sexual violence, but the new effort will fill a gap in services for adults. Making sure everyone has access to these services is important, she said, because trauma has widespread consequences.
“If people have a background or a history of any kind of trauma, it increases their risk for poor health outcomes, for challenges with work and for additional victimization,” Perrotto said.
Getting past the stigma associated with trauma and other mental health concerns is still a challenge, Perrotto said, despite a variety of efforts, but a new position funded through the grant may help.
“I really see this Connected Together coordinator as being a person who can very much act as a bridge between a lot of these things that are related or connected but aren’t working in tandem – or aren’t working directly on the ground with people in the community,” she said.
The coordinator job will be to help create strategies for preventing violence in four communities in the county – Lebanon Annville, Palmyra, and Myerstown.
Several social services organizations are also training counselors in the county on diagnosing and treating trauma-related mental health issues. These providers will receive certification in a treatment called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy, or EDMR.
A collection of interviews, photos, and music videos, featuring local musicians who have stopped by the WITF performance studio to share a little discussion and sound. Produced by WITF’s Joe Ulrich.
