Observations all along the line - Kimball & the Southern Panhandle First

May is National Mental Health Month

“Life with a mental illness,” theme urges others to consider the varied issues and approaches to mental illness.

How does it feel to live with a mental illness? Clinical terms are the words used by professionals to describe the symptoms of a disorder, but often times those words don’t do justice to what life with a mental illness feels like.

As May is National Mental Health Month, mental health providers are focused on providing information about “Life with a mental illness,” the theme for 2016.

It is known that two people with the same diagnosis can experience the same symptom and describe it in very different ways. For example one person might describe fear as being scared to the point of feeling paralyzed, while another might describe fear as an overwhelming urge to run away. It can be confusing to align personal experience with mental illness to clinical criteria, and this can contribute to ongoing silence or hesitation to get help.

The Panhandle Health Group, formerly known as Panhandle Mental Health Center, has served as the community mental health agency for 47 years and just as there have been extensive changes to the healthcare field and the center has also had some changes involving growth.

Effective May 1, 2016, the Panhandle Mental Health Center became known as the Panhandle Health Group. This is more than a name change; it represents the philosophical and holistic integrated treatment approach the group has been working toward the last year.

For area residents struggling with mental health, the Panhandle Health Group offers outpatient mental health, outpatient substance abuse, intensive outpatient programs for substance abuse, medication management, problem gambling counseling, and community support.

With a growing office in Kimball, Panhandle Health Group is expanding and growing the outreach of the community in the county. It also offers clinical sessions through Secure Tele-health, allowing therapists and consumers the choice to connect in a HIPAA-compliant safe and secure virtual office through the internet, therapeutically named the “Serenity Space”.

Kimball Health Services has a special relationship with the staff of the area mental health providers, Panhandle Health Group, according to KHS Public Relations Spokesperson, Kerry Ferguson, and some of PHG’s mid-level health providers are supervised by local physician Dr. James Broomfield.

After the Kimball Health Service Hospital Foundation donated its former office building at 414 West 2nd St. to the hospital last year, KHS began leasing the building to Panhandle Health Group for their regional office in Kimball.

“Kimball Health Service works very closely with PHG to serve the mental health needs of the community,” Ferguson said. “KHS health providers refer patients to them when needed, and PHG staff regularly attend medical staff meetings at the hospital.”