Awareness is important, action is vital …

For about six years now, Scott Free Clinic has used all of the communication resources available to this ministry to participate as fully as possible in raising awareness about mental illness and mental health issues throughout May as part of national Mental Health Awareness Month. Throughout the month of May we will continue that tradition of informing and educating people about a variety of mental health issues, but we’re limiting some of those efforts to focus on something greater than just awareness …

But first …

… let me point you to some resources easily available to you from Scott Free Clinic that can help you raise your personal awareness about mental illness and mental health issues. Those resources include:

• Our blog. You can find more than 2,400 FREE articles posted on our blog here featuring multiple topics. You can click on the tag “Mental Health” to find the articles specifically dealing with mental health and mental illness, and you can also use the search feature for a topic you’re interested in (not all tags appear on the blog). If you want to make sure you never miss a post, you can subscribe to the blog for FREE from the blog home page.
• Two specific books that I wrote — “Insights for your Mental and Behavioral Health” and “The Temperament and Cognitive-Behavioral Workbook” — can be found on our website here.
• Many different subjects are represented in the plethora of reading recommendations on our FREE Self-Help Toolbox, which you can access on our website here.
• Throughout the month of May, we’ll be sharing information pertaining to mental health and mental illness on our social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

While we have always made informing and educating an important component of this ministry, this year we want to use the national Mental Health Awareness Month to encourage and challenge you to move …

Over the past five to ten years, there has been some increase in the conversations within the church about mental illness and mental health — but marginally so. The truth is, mental illness is something that remains largely ignored until those tragic moments when the death of a celebrity, or “celebrity pastor,” makes headlines. Then we mourn and say something should be done … but we usually don’t “do” anything beyond that.

It remains a sad fact that the topic of mental illness is still heavily stigmatized within (and without) the church, and most of us never move past raising our awareness to doing something related to directly helping people suffering from mental illness or mental health issues. Because of that fact, Scott Free Clinic will use the emphasis this month to invite, encourage, and challenge people, especially our friends, to do more than raise their awareness about mental illness and mental health, but to ACT!

That’s because …

Studies persistently reveal a few critical points:

• Treatment for mental illnesses from competent, skilled clinical therapists and other mental health professionals routinely yields positive outcomes.
• A majority of people who need clinical counseling don’t get the help they need because they can’t afford it.
• Access to competent mental health professionals is sometimes limited, depending on where a person lives.

And so six years ago this coming October, Scott Free Clinic launched (partially) with a vision and mission of removing the barriers of cost and access to provide the help people need to change their lives. Since then, God has used this ministry to produce the fruit of more than 1,200 saved/changed lives!

The mission of this ministry is now endangered by our funding support shrinking from a “trickle” to just a few drops, forcing us to go from operating at a minimal level to operating inconsistently from month-to-month. While we need new support to get back to operating at just a minimal level, THE primary reason we are inviting and encouraging people to become a Care Partner with Scott Free Clinic is because as long as we can operate, we can minister to people; and as long as we can minister to people, God has been faithful to use that to change lives.

Simply put, ACTION CHANGES THINGS! And in this case, “things” means people’s lives!

Talking a little more about mental illness is a good thing, but not enough.

Raising awareness about mental illness and mental health issues is a good thing, but not enough.

It’s not enough until we take action so that lives are changed.

With all that said, we invite and encourage YOU to either make a donation to Scott Free Clinic today, or become a regular Care Partner with us. You can do that from our website here.

We encourage all of you to use the month of May to learn more about mental illness and mental health issues; to engage in conversations about mental illness and mental health — there’s great value in raising your awareness!

But why not go one step further and ACT?

In His Service,

Dr. James Scott, Jr.
Founder and President,
Scott Free Clinic