Mental Health Partnerships

About Mental Health Partnerships

Mental Health Partnerships was founded on the principle that people with mental health conditions can recover by directing their own journeys in overcoming adversity. Recovery is possible for all, especially with the support of an informed, caring community including family, friends, and peers. Over six decades, we have led changes transforming mental health services locally, statewide, and nationally, making them more responsive to the priorities of those served. Our organization was instrumental in closing state mental hospitals and ensuring over a hundred million dollars was invested into community-based mental health services. This included the creation of Community Behavioral Health (CBH), a city-run entity managing behavioral health services for approximately 450,000 Philadelphians under HealthChoices, Pennsylvania’s mandatory managed care plan for Medical Assistance recipients. MHP advocacy was also crucial in preventing the takeover of CBH by for-profit managed care organizations in the late 1990s. MHP was the first in Pennsylvania to offer peer-to-peer mental health services from neighborhood drop-in centers, which have evolved into our recovery learning centers. This was based on the idea that people in recovery could help others with mental health conditions on their paths toward recovery through example and mutual support. Since establishing ourselves as a nonprofit in 1951 as the Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania, we now provide more than 40 direct services in Philadelphia, the surrounding four counties, South Jersey, and the State of Delaware.