All is not well in Park City
Kathy Meyer is co-vice chair of CONNECT Summit County and specializes in therapeutic placements for teens and young adults. Her areas of expertise are students with anxiety, depression and students who are struggling with social skill deficits. This originally appeared in the Park City Letters column on October 23, 2021.
Park City is an idyllic town year-round for many. It’s hard to reconcile that anyone could be less than perfect in mind, body and spirit with the abounding fall beauty all around us. However, looks can be deceiving and when we look closer and read the recent Community Engagement And Behavioral Health Survey reported by The Park Record on Sept. 28, we see that all is not well.
The report gives some disappointing statistics about how we have fallen short meeting the mental health needs of our community. At Connect Summit County, we were not surprised to hear that 31% of people who need mental health services report being unable to access them for reasons such as cost, stigma and not knowing about available resources.
Connect Summit County’s goal is to help people navigate the mental health system and provide information about available resources. While our staff can provide support with a warm ear, we are finding it more challenging every day to direct people to vital mental health services. The majority of mental health providers in Park City are full and have wait lists of up to four months. Many of the therapists in Summit County don’t accept insurance, and fees are often cost-prohibitive for people in need.
Our local leadership talks a lot about a sustainable future for Park City, and we need to do a better job of making mental health awareness and accessibility a part of this future. People should not have to choose between mental health therapy and putting food on the table. So, what do we need? We need options that lower the barriers of cost for people seeking help, and we need more mental health providers including therapists and psychiatric professionals who can take on clients.
If you are a mental health provider and have not yet been listed on our comprehensive resource directory, or you need to update your information, please submit your listing on our site here.
If you have ANY availability to accept new clients, reach out and let us know by emailing [email protected] or by calling our resources line at 435-776-4357.