- Hello and welcome to Living In The Lehigh Valley, where our focus is your health and wellness.

I'm your host, Brittany Sweeney.

Mental health resources are not always easy to find, but a new walk-in clinic in Carbon County aims to change that.

It's a place people can go for help with emotional situations, everything from grief to depression.

People looking for mental health support now have a new option in Lehigh and Carbon County.

- The purpose behind it is to increase access for individuals who are in need of mental health services.

- St Luke's University Health Network's new walk-in mental health center is open in the space formerly used as the emergency department for Gnaden Huetten Hospital.

Jody McCloud Missmer is the network administrator for Behavioral Health and Psychiatry.

- This space would be for those individuals that perhaps don't rise to the acute level of needing an emergency department, but perhaps are struggling with some grief or some anxiety or panic attacks.

And this gives them a location to go to where they can have real-time assessment and help and guidance for those particular symptoms.

- She says the purpose is to offer more resources to people ages 14 and up who are looking for emotional help.

- They will have access to a caseworker and/or a psychotherapist for an evaluation, and/or a psychiatric provider, either a physician or a PA or NP, so a physician assistant or a nurse practitioner.

And they'll be able to get some answers in that moment.

- Carbon County has the highest veteran suicide rate in Pennsylvania.

So in addition to the walk-in center, an office for veterans resources will open down the hall in the weeks to come.

From here, one of those connecting resources is an instant walk right down the hall into the VA office.

- Jenny Rose Serfass is the manager of Behavioral Health Services and rural residency for St Luke's.

She says the Veterans Center will be staffed with a VA member or someone from the suicide prevention organization together with veterans.

Serfass says the resources are not just for servicemen and women, but their families as well.

- We have a book cart that was specifically designed for veteran family members, for children, adolescents.

We have some really cool books.

I was like, "These are incredible."

They're veteran examples of what kids can look for and just seeing people like their family members in books.

How often do we really see veterans depicted in books for children and for them to understand the excitement and make them even more proud?

- The Veterans Resource Center is still in the works.

Meanwhile, doors opened at the walk-in mental health center in August.

Patients can use their insurance for services.

For those who do not have insurance, grant money will be applied until funding runs out, according to St Luke's.

- That's the goal, is really to be able to offer this to individuals so that they don't rise to the level where they are either harming themselves or they end up in the highest level of care, which is inpatient.

We want to try to avoid that.

- The clinic is open Monday through Friday, 24 hours a day, and then on weekends during the day and closes overnight.

That'll do it for this edition of Living In The Lehigh Valley.

I'm Brittany Sweeney, hoping you stay happy and healthy.