Unmet mental health needs are a major public health problem in the United States. Many people with mental health challenges seek help from their faith community or prefer to receive spiritually-integrated mental healthcare. The goal of this project is to evaluate and expand Intersect, a program within Access Services, Inc., that supports those living at the intersection of faith and mental health via consultation, training, and collaboration.
Located in southeastern Pennsylvania, Intersect improves the ability of faith communities to support people struggling with mental health challenges and increases the capacity of mental health service organizations (MHSOs) to support the spiritual needs of their patients and clients. This project will accomplish the following aims:
1: Establish a multi-sector Advisory Board of faith and mental health stakeholders to ensure substantive cross-disciplinary collaboration throughout our project.
2: Use the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of Intersect’s programs and services using a convergent mixed methods design.
3: Expand Intersect to faith communities and MHSOs in Philadelphia County.
We will assess how Intersect serves clinicians and clients within Access Services, Inc., evaluate Intersect’s partnerships and programs within Bucks and Montgomery Counties, and develop strategies for expanding Intersect to Philadelphia. Due to the lack of “bottom-up” research investigating community-based initiatives working at the intersection of faith and mental health, this project is both timely and necessary. Benefits of this project will include reductions in mental health disparities, improvements made to Intersect, diverse faith communities and MHSOs adopting Intersect’s multi-sector approach, counties embedding Intersect within their mental healthcare systems, and securing public funding for Intersect’s work.
