When there are needs to be met for mental health services on the Mid-Shore, For All Seasons provides and does so generously and equitably. Thanks to a recent challenge grant from our foundation, For All Seasons will be able to expand their services even further.
Reflecting on the tragic event in Charleston, S.C., we are reminded again that all is not well in our society. Taking the perpetrator at his word means the act was a racially motivated hate crime intended to terrorize a community and our country. Looking past those words raises questions of possible mental illness unrecognized and untreated, but regardless of motivations and even while some of the victim’s families speak of forgiveness and we grieve for the losses and the pain felt by the families and friends of the victims, we try to comprehend how someone could have become so misguided and hateful. Did he not have a family or a home or a place of stability with an appropriate role model to follow? Would it have even made a difference? Should he have been receiving treatment and counseling?
Good questions to ask, particularly this weekend as we celebrate Father’s Day, a time when many of us celebrate our father’s love, and for others, well…it’s complicated. Let’s not forget that Father’s Day isn’t a happy day for everyone. Family isn’t always a safe refuge, and parents don’t all wrap their children in a warm, safe embrace. Consequently, support outside the family is often needed and not often available or affordable.
We are fortunate, however, here on the Shore to have an organization that does provide support and treatment and does so regardless of means of the person in need.
For All Seasons turns no one away that needs support.
FACT: One in four adults have a mental health need at some point in any given year.
Locally, that means that 42,500 of our neighbors in the five counties of the Mid-Shore need some kind of support for stress, anxiety, depression, or after the stress from trauma.
FACT: 25% of high school students in the five counties of the Mid-Shore at some point during the past 12 months felt so sad or hopeless every day for at least two weeks, that they stopped doing their everyday activities.
That’s one in four high school students, or 1,945 youth here in our community, so stressed, that they’ve been at a point where they didn’t see a way out. More than 1,322 students in the five counties on the Shore have considered suicide at some point during the past 12 months, and 778 of them admitted to having actually devised a suicide plan. *
Weave these facts together, and one has to wonder, are we doing enough as a community, a rural region, to support each other? What will it take to ensure that we are?
Did you know that For All Seasons is a Mid-Shore safety net, ready to match any of us at our most vulnerable moments with qualified professional counselors and psychiatrists? Offering mental health workers in Easton, Chestertown, Queenstown, Cambridge and Denton, For All Seasons has qualified professionals in place to listen, support, find solutions, make psychiatric referrals and be there with anyone, regardless of their ability to pay.
For All Seasons can be found inside of local schools, with counselors able to work one on one with students in the comfort of their familiar school building. For All Seasons is in local detention centers, providing mental health treatment to people who have already broken the law. For All Seasons can be found in hospital emergency rooms, helping rape and sexual assault victims cope with trauma and pain. For All Seasons is in the local homeless shelter, ready to assess and treat people who have reached their own personal bottom. For All Seasons is present with law enforcement, ready to help victims of violence heal and move on.
The need for the services For All Seasons provides continues to grow so the support and donations must grow as well. Fortunately, on April 27, Dock Street Foundation issued a challenge to the Board of Directors of For All Seasons, offering to match dollar for dollar, all donations received through June 30th, 2015. That means that any one of us can step up and become part of that safety net that keeps our community strong. Between now and June 30th, Dock Street Foundation and For All Seasons asks you to pledge your support.
Please contribute online here: or mail your check to For All Seasons at 300 Talbot St., Easton, MD 21601. If you wish to make a private pledge, call Beth Anne Langrell, the Executive Director, at 410-822-1018.
Remember: For All Seasons exists because there are needs. Fulfilling those needs is vital so we maintain a strong and healthy community.
The Dock Street Foundation
Trappe, MD
*2013 Maryland Youth Risk Behavior Survey, DHMH (The good news is that 86% of those same students said they have an adult outside of school that they can talk to. Yet only 40% of those students did in fact, talk to a teacher or adult about personal problems.)
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