A Partnership for Better Mental Health

Lack of transportation and child care, financial hardship and the stigma frequently attached to mental health issues are among the many challenges people in marginalized communities face when it comes to obtaining necessary counseling services. 

Lehigh’s graduate program in Counseling Psychology is working to diminish those challenges. Partnering with the Bethlehem Area School District and St. Luke’s University Health Network, the program has formed the Community Voices Clinic, a community-schools-based training site for master’s and doctoral-level students in mental-health counseling and supervision. 

“If you provide services where the family is already coming, there’s not as much stigma— they have connections with the school, they feel comfortable. It’s just easier,” says Arpana Inman, professor of Counseling Psychology, licensed psychologist and clinic director. 

Community Voices Clinic opened in 2012 at Broughal Middle School and Donegan Elementary in Bethlehem, Pa. Funded by St. Luke’s, it is fully staffed by graduate students who incorporate evidence-based practice, multicultural competence and social justice in their free therapy services to uninsured and underinsured South Bethlehem residents. The clinic also provides weekly group sessions for senior citizens and career counseling and vocational training at the Hispanic Center Lehigh Valley. 

The clinic provides on-the-job training for graduate students who are involved with everything from creating forms to identifying needs and developing policies and procedures. 

The clinic hopes to help provide integrated medical and mental-health care by partnering further with the St. Luke’s family clinic at Donegan. The new partnership would allow clients to see a physician and, if needed, be referred immediately to a social worker and a counselor during that same visit. The ultimate goal is to work with community organizations to create an integrated center for well-being with a multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, nutritionists, counselors and psychologists.