For Release
December 14, 2017
Contact: Veronica Mikitka Reed, 215.434.7194, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Public Health Management Corporation Celebrates 45 Years of Re-Imagining Public Health
Councilman Derek Green presented PHMC with a citation recognizing the organization’s 45-year anniversary and commitment to serving the region’s public health needs.

PHILADELPHIA, PA. – Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), a nonprofit public health institute that creates and sustains healthier communities, is celebrating 45 years of partnering with government, foundations, and community-based organizations to provide public health services to the region’s most vulnerable populations.

PHMC touches the lives of more than 350,000 individuals through more than 350 programs, a network of subsidiary organizations, and more than 70 locations with a focus on integrated health services, child and family social services, education and workforce development, criminal justice and transitional services, and research and data. Since its founding in 1972, PHMC has expanded to create a continuum of public health resources, integrating services to meet the needs of diverse populations in Southeastern Pennsylvania.

“From our humble beginnings in 1972, PHMC has grown to be one of the largest and most comprehensive public health institutes in the country, by wrapping our services around individuals and families in our most needy communities,” said Richard J. Cohen, PHMC’s President and CEO. “PHMC is continuously focused on innovative partnerships and unique collaborations, and we couldn’t be more proud of these relationships and our ability to utilize partnerships to expand impact and improve the lives of so many.”

PHMC is marking the occasion with internal and external events tied to the theme of “Re-imagining public health.” For nearly five decades, PHMC has been a leader in re-imagining public health through mergers and acquisitions, caring for the community, partnering with other organizations, and advancing public health in the region and nation. Here’s a closer look at some of the most recent ways PHMC continues to impact the region:

Mergers and Acquisitions:

- In June, PHMC announced its intent to pursue the acquisition of Wordsworth, a nonprofit organization providing education, behavioral health, and child welfare services to children, adolescents, and families. Pending the successful acquisition of Wordsworth, PHMC will integrate Wordsworth’s programs, which include two Community Umbrella Agencies (CUAs), foster family care programs, behavioral health programs, and Wordsworth Academy, into PHMC’s existing business enterprise to ensure the continuation of critical services to populations and communities in need.

- In July, PHMC merged Treatment Research Institute (TRI), a leading, national nonprofit research, development and policy organization, into its family of programs. TRI is now part of PHMC’s Research and Evaluation (R&E) Group, which is dedicated to improving the health of communities through applied, community-based research and rigorous program evaluation designed to inform best practices in the public health and education arenas. This merger further emphasized PHMC as a leader in championing a public health response to the substance abuse and misuse epidemic.

Caring:

- ChildLink, a program of PHMC whose mission is to educate, empower and increase a family's capacity to support their child in reaching his or her highest potential, celebrated 25 years of partnership with Philadelphia Infant Toddler Early Intervention Program coordinated by Philadelphia’s Intellectual disAbility Services, a division of the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services. The program has provided early intervention service coordination to nearly 100,000 children and families across Philadelphia from birth to age three with special needs or developmental delays.

- In October of 2016, PHMC, along with the City of Philadelphia’s Community Behavioral Health (CBH), opened Pathways to Recovery, a new 30-45 day partial hospitalization program designed to help individuals struggling with both addiction and mental health issues. The program is the first-of-its-kind in Philadelphia. Pathways to Recovery engages highly vulnerable individuals struggling with both substance use and mental health challenges in order to provide stability, and assist them in their recovery.

Partnership:

- In April, PHMC, in partnership with Temple University Hospital, opened its sixth nurse-managed federally qualified health center in the PHMC health network. The PHMC Health Center at Temple University Hospital helps the emergency department by providing accessible, affordable health services to those who don’t need to be admitted to the hospital but need general care.

- In 2016, PHMC was named the administrative intermediary for the City of Philadelphia’s pre-K initiative in partnership with the Urban Affairs Coalition (UAC). PHMC and UAC closely collaborate in support of the City’s vision to deliver high-quality, accessible pre-K throughout Philadelphia. PHMC and UAC are joined together in the belief that high-quality, affordable early childhood education should be accessible to all children across the region. To date, 2,000 seats have been filled across 90 providers throughout the City.

Advancing Public Health:

- Joseph J. Peters Institute (JJPI), a PHMC subsidiary and nonprofit that helps individuals and families dealing with the effects of trauma, in collaboration with Strawberry Mansion: A Sanctuary for Hope (SMASH), have been awarded a two-year, $191,000 grant from Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD). This grant allows JPPI to provide community-based Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (TF-CBT) to children and adolescents (ages 3-17) residing in the 22nd Police District of North Philadelphia who have been victimized by violence or have experienced other types of trauma. Over the next two years, JJPI will work in collaboration with SMASH to stop the cycle of poverty and violence plaguing the 22nd police district by increasing accessibility for TF-CBT within the North Philadelphia community.

- In November, PHMC partnered with four other national organizations in an advocacy effort in support of the enforcement of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act to improve access to substance use disorder and mental health treatment by participating in the Parity10 Compliance Campaign. The campaign is a three-year effort to unite local and national advocates in 10 states to pursue full enforcement of the Parity Act – with the ultimate goal of ensuring that the law lives up to its promise nationwide.

Philadelphia Councilman Derek Green presented PHMC with a citation in celebration of 45 years of delivering public health services in the region.

PHMC has a long-standing legacy of delivering high-quality, evidence-based health, human and social services to individuals and families in the region. The organization continues to look for ways to help re-imagine the public health landscape that will increase its ability to make an impact in Philadelphia and beyond.

About PHMC

Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) is a nonprofit public health institute that creates and sustains healthier communities. PHMC uses best practices and evidence-based guidelines to improve community health through direct service, partnership, innovation, policy, research, technical assistance and a prepared workforce. PHMC has served the region since 1972. For more information on PHMC, visit www.phmc.org.

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For Immediate Release
November 14, 2017
Contact: Emily Kanter, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 215-434-7195

New Campaign Announced to Achieve Effective Parity Enforcement in 10 States
Parity@10 Compliance Campaign Marks 10 Years Since Passage of Parity Law, Aims to Jumpstart Enforcement

New York: Five of the nation’s leading advocacy organizations for effective enforcement of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (Parity Act) today announced the launch of the Parity@10 Compliance Campaign. The campaign is a three year effort that will unite local and national advocates in 10 states to pursue full enforcement of the Parity Act – with the ultimate goal of ensuring that the law lives up to its promise nationwide. The campaign is being spearheaded by the Legal Action Center (LAC), the Kennedy Forum, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and the Research & Evaluation Group at Public Health Management Corporation.

One of the major recommendations outlined in the final report of the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis is the need for greater enforcement of the Federal Parity Act. Next year will mark the 10th anniversary of the landmark legislation, which mandates that health insurance plans’ standards for substance use and mental health benefits be comparable to, and be no more restrictive than, the standards for other medical/surgical benefits. The purpose of the Parity Act is to prevent discriminatory insurance coverage for those with mental health and substance use disorders, but it must be effectively enforced in order to achieve this objective.

“The campaign is ready to jumpstart parity enforcement,” said Ellen Weber, vice president for health initiatives at the Legal Action Center and the director of the campaign. “Achieving more robust parity compliance in 10 states over the next three years will not only benefit millions of people living in those states, but will also establish models that can be adopted by other states.”

Parity@10 will launch in five states – Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Ohio, with a key anchor organization working in each state in the first year of the campaign. An additional five states will be added in the second year. The campaign’s work in each state will be broad, ranging from researching the current treatment and policy landscape to conducting extensive public and provider education about the Parity Act, to working with legislators, regulators and Attorneys General to develop more effective compliance and enforcement frameworks.

“Every day, more than 290 Americans will die from either a drug overdose or suicide. We cannot wait one more minute to take action,” says Patrick J. Kennedy, founder of The Kennedy Forum and a member of the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. “It is way past time to enforce this law. We need to move from a system that relies on people in the middle of personal turmoil to identify wrongdoing to one that is grounded in proactive enforcement of the law—involving state attorneys general, state insurance commissioners, and the Department of Labor.” Kennedy is a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives and was a lead sponsor of the Parity Act.

The current enforcement framework primarily relies on consumers to raise issues with Parity Act compliance, but a recent analysis found that insurance plan documents do not generally provide the information necessary for consumers to determine whether their coverage complies with the law. The Parity@10 Campaign will advocate for state regulators to shift to a pre-market, prospective regulatory review process to ensure that plans are complying with the Parity Act before they are sold, rather than continuing to place the burden on consumers to identify Parity Act violations and assert their right to care in the midst of a health crisis.

Denise Mariano, a mother from New Jersey and a parent coach for the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids, fought for two years to get her insurer to cover her son’s treatment for opioid addiction, draining her family’s financial resources to pay for out of pocket care as she battled insurance denials.

“My child was battling a life-threatening disease; he was personally begging for help and my insurance company said that treatment wasn’t ‘medically necessary’.” She adds, “We were the lucky ones – we had the means to pay now and fight later – if we hadn’t been able to do that our son would probably not be here today, instead he lives a full and beautiful life in recovery. My family is still climbing out of debt for care that insurance should have covered. The model doesn’t work – people are dying every day waiting for their insurance companies to approve the care that they are entitled to receive under the law.”

The initial phase of the Parity@10 Campaign is partially funded by each of the following entities: Indivior, Inc., The New York Community Trust, the Open Society U.S. Programs and the Open Society Institute-Baltimore.

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Parity@10 is a three-year campaign to establish effective models for robust enforcement of the Parity Act in 10 states and to disseminate those models across the country. The campaign’s goal is to ensure that insurance carriers and State Medicaid programs offer fully parity compliant substance use and mental health benefits and put an end to a complaint-driven enforcement model that forces consumers to fight for the evidence-based health care they need and are entitled to receive. The campaign is being spearheaded by the Legal Action Center (LAC), the Kennedy Forum, The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and the Research & Evaluation Group at Public Health Management Corporation.

For Immediate Release
December 7, 2017 Veronica Mikitka Reed, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 215-434-7194

Public Health Management Corporation Announces Chief Operating Officer

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) is pleased to announce the addition of Lauren Lambrugo as Chief Operating Officer. In this role, Lambrugo will support PHMC’s operations and continued growth through the oversight and coordination of finance, human resources, information technology, and real estate and facilities departments. Lambrugo will begin in mid-January 2018.

“We are pleased to welcome Lauren to PHMC as she brings extensive experience in the government and nonprofit sectors supporting service delivery across a variety of health, human and social service areas,” said Richard J. Cohen, President and CEO of Public Health Management Corporation. “Tasked with integrating infrastructure functions and partnering with program and service delivery, Lauren will be an excellent fit for the PHMC family as we continue our work to deliver high-quality, wrap-around services to individuals, families and communities.”

Lambrugo comes to PHMC from Montgomery County where she served as Chief Operating Officer for nearly six years. In this role she was responsible for the oversight and management of a $409 million operating budget, a $552 million Capital Program and 2,800 employees. She also provided guidance to the restructuring of eight Health and Human Services departments into one department to improve service delivery and better utilize resources for clients served.

Lambrugo previously served as Executive Director for the Shapiro/Richards campaign for Montgomery County Commissioner where she managed the $2.1 million campaign that culminated in record vote numbers and the first Democratic control of the County in more than 140 years. She was also Chief of Staff and Political Director for Pennsylvania State Representative Josh Shapiro for three years. Before her political work in Montgomery County, Lambrugo worked for nine years at Planned Parenthood Southeastern PA as the Vice President for External Affairs and Public Impact Director for Chester County, and held multiple roles at the Office of the Mayor in New York City.

Lambrugo received a Bachelor of Arts from Fordham University with a major in Economics and a minor in Political Science. She furthered her education at the Fordham Graduate School of Business Administration.

About PHMC
Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) is a nonprofit public health institute that creates and sustains healthier communities. PHMC uses best practices to improve community health through direct service, partnership, innovation, policy, research, technical assistance and a prepared workforce. PHMC has served the region since 1972. For more information on PHMC, visit www.phmc.org.

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For Immediate Release
September 27, 2017
Contact: Emily Kanter, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., 215-434-7195

ChildLink Celebrates 25 Years of Empowering Families to Maximize their Child’s Potential

Kickoff celebration on Saturday, September 30th at Dilworth Plaza

PHILADELPHIA, PA – ChildLink, a program of Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), whose mission is to educate, empower and increase a family's capacity to support their child in reaching his or her highest potential, is celebrating 25 years of partnership with Philadelphia Infant Toddler Early Intervention Program coordinated by Philadelphia’s Intellectual disAbility Services, a division of the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS) to provide early intervention service coordination to children across Philadelphia from birth to age three who have special needs or developmental delays.

“We are honored to have served nearly 100,000 children and families along with DBHIDS over the last 25 years, and look forward to celebrating our efforts and outcomes with the community,” said Sara Molina-Robinson, Managing Director, Social Services at PHMC. “Our overarching objective continues to be helping communities understand how early identification of developmental issues and delays is a key piece of a child’s school readiness and future success. ChildLink looks to ensure that children with developmental delays are supported with services and interventions to address their developmental issues and promote the child’s ongoing development.”

The 25th anniversary celebration events kick-off on September 29, 2017 with an invitation only event at City Hall where Councilman Derek Green will be presenting and reading the Proclamation given by the City of Philadelphia, which recognizes September 29, 2017 as Philadelphia Infant Toddler Early Intervention Day in the City of Philadelphia The festivities continue September 30, 2017 at City Hall’s Dilworth Plaza and will be followed by series of outreach events throughout Philadelphia in the coming months. During these events, ChildLink staff will provide free developmental screenings, referrals for services, games and activities for the entire family.

“We’re excited to celebrate 25 years of partnership with DBHIDS and honor the positive impact that has been made on the lives of young children and their families across our region,” said Richard J. Cohen, President and CEO of PHMC.

On Saturday, September 30 from 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. at Dilworth Park at City Hall guests can enjoy a fun-filled afternoon of music, face painting, balloons, games, giveaways and more. Free developmental screenings and information about access to early intervention services will be available.

Early Intervention services including service coordination provided by ChildLink are entitlements under the Pennsylvania Early Intervention Services System Act and are provided at no cost to families. Early Intervention is one of the services included in Mayor Kenny’s Shared Prosperity Running Start, a citywide plan to address the connection between health, learning and helping young children get ready for school. The plan calls for agencies and community programs throughout the city that work with young children to have focused and coordinated efforts to address the risk factors and adverse situations experienced by young Philadelphia children.

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About Public Health Management Corporation
Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) is a nonprofit public health institute that creates and sustains healthier communities. PHMC uses best practices to improve community health through direct service, partnership, innovation, policy, research, technical assistance and a prepared workforce. PHMC has served the region since 1972. For more information on PHMC, visit www.phmc.org.

About ChildLink
Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) administers the ChildLink/Philadelphia County program as part of a contract with the City of Philadelphia's Department of Behavioral health and Intellectual disAbility Services (IdS). As a program of PHMC, ChildLink staff educate, empower and increase a family's capacity to support their child in reaching his or her highest potential. Since 1992 nearly 100,000 children have received services and more than 4200 children are currently receiving service coordination and early intervention or developmental screening. For more information, visit www.childlinkphila.org.