by From Philly and the Pennsylvania suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would WHYY News like to cover? Let us know!
A federal agency has awarded $1.2 million to community health centers in Philadelphia to expand mental health and substance abuse treatment.
The money will be split into two $600,000 grants that will go to the nonprofit Greater Philadelphia Health Action and the city Department of Public Health’s Ambulatory Health Services division, which operates nine city health centers.
Both operate public health clinics that offer low-cost primary care and certain behavioral health services to people who are under- or uninsured.
The funding is part of $7.7 million in grants, 13 in total, that will be distributed to community health organizations and programs across Pennsylvania.
Carole Johnson, administrator of the federal Health Resources and Services Administration, said the goal of this money is to make behavioral health care more accessible where people already receive other types of health care.
“If we want to be able to meet the growing demand for mental health and substance abuse services, we must leverage our full footprint from where we deliver health care,” Johnson said, “and integrating these services into primary care just makes a lot of sense.”
