Who: Cathy Headland is a peer support specialist at WellSpan Philhaven Hospital in Mount Gretna in Lebanon County. Peer support specialists are team members who share their lived experience with mental health and addiction challenges to model recovery and support patients in their own recovery journeys.

What: Patients wear their own clothing while being treated at the hospital. Cathy oversees a Donations Closet that provides clothing for patients who arrive at the hospital either in scrubs or in the outfit they were wearing upon admission. Many of these patients often lack access or the means to get additional clothing.

All clothing – regularly replenished by contributions from Philhaven employees – must meet strict guidelines for behavioral health inpatients. Housed in a small room off a gym, the tidy closet features racks of laundered clothing on hangers, organized by gender and size, next to separate bins for underwear, socks, and shoes.

Earlier this year, Cathy got a call from Ruthann Dwyer, manager of spiritual care for Philhaven, about a Plain Community patient who needed some culturally appropriate clothing. The woman had been admitted to the hospital with just one dress she was wearing and did not have family nearby to easily provide additional clothing.

Unfortunately, the Donations Closet did not have anything that suited the woman’s needs, nor did the nearby Green Pasture, a separate behavioral health care residence operated for and by the Plain Community on Philhaven’s campus. So, Cathy volunteered to find something on her own.

On her way home from work that day, Cathy first stopped at her gym for her regular workout. While there, she saw a young woman wearing a Mennonite head covering. She struck up a conversation with her, asking if she would know of a place that might offer Plain Community clothing for the patient in need. The woman said she might be able to help and exchanged phone numbers with Cathy.

After the encounter, Cathy stopped at a thrift store and was able to purchase some clothing that she thought would be appropriate for the patient.

Later that evening, Cathy got a call from the young woman she met at the gym, who told her that she had experienced her own mental health challenges and wanted to personally do something to help the patient. She asked her mother to make a dress for the patient and also gave Cathy the name of a local consignment shop that offered to donate Plain community dresses to the Philhaven closet.

Philhaven nurse Eva Hoffmaster took the patient’s measurements, and within a week the woman’s mother had made a dress and donated it, along with a note that said, “We want this to bring you hope.”

Though the patient had been discharged by the time the dress arrived, the hospital found another patient who could use it. Since then, the Donations Closet has added some Plain Community clothing to its racks.

Words to live by: Cathy says she was touched by the kindness and empathy of the young woman she met at the gym.

“It was just a really great experience all around,” she says. “It gave the patient such encouragement that the local Plain Community would come together in that way and have that much compassion and understanding for what this patient was going through – to the point that they were willing to make a dress for her.”

She says the dresses, pants, sweatshirts, socks, and other items that come from the Donations Closet might seem simple, but that they often have a huge impact on those in need.

“You never know what this clothing program will mean to someone,” she says, adding that the closet is a team effort supported by housekeepers who wash the clothing; another peer specialist, Brandon Borders, who helps maintain the closet; a volunteer who helps sort and hang the clothing; and the Philhaven staff members who make donations.

“From my experience, even through the most difficult challenges, the smallest outward change can have a positive impact on how we feel on the inside,” Cathy says, noting that support from others is key to a successful recovery. “Anything that I can do to help a patient feel a little better about themselves I will do, because other people did that for me.”