Articles Tagged: Mental health

Karen Smith, like most moms, would do anything for her kids. That includes walking almost 300 miles across the state of Iowa, twice.

The board that governs regional mental health and disability services advocated for spending down a nearly $9.2 million surplus before the end of the budget year in June by boosting support for underfunded services within its nine-county area.

The Guardian Training Institute is an Iowa City based nonprofit that offers trauma and mental health training and programs for firefighters, police officers and first responders. The nonprofit has just begun offering the training at private businesses.

A pilot civil specialty court will start next month in Johnson County to help individuals who were involuntarily committed be successful on their own in the community. The court sessions will ensure participants continue their meds, treatment and receive other needed supports.

Major medical groups in the United States -- including the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics — say gender-affirming care is safe and encourage it as a treatment for gender dysphoria, which is when people feel like they are a different gender than their birth gender.

Video visits are an increasingly common way for residents of small-town nursing homes to receive mental health care.

The regional board that manages mental health funding passed a budget allocating $2.9 million for the Linn and Johnson County access centers after supervisors in those counties pushed for sufficient funding.

The Linn County Juvenile Detention Center is seeking funding through the Mental Health/Disability Services of the East Central Region in order to continue its partnership with Tanager Place to provide mental health services to incarcerated juveniles.

As the East Central Mental Health Region prepares to vote soon on Linn and Johnson County access center budgets, Director Erin Foster hopes the region sees value in “paying to be prepared and paying to have access available.”

The mental health access centers in Linn and Johnson counties would be funded below their requests under a proposed budget for fiscal 2024. County officials and providers warned this would result in reduced services, if not closure of the facilities.

Iowa House lawmakers advanced legislation supporters say could provide a financial lifeline to Iowa’s small, rural hospitals that face closure.

Grow Therapy, a New York-based company that helps therapists with the paperwork involved in running a private practice, will be expanding to 22 new states, including Iowa.

Eighteen months after opening in Cedar Rapids, the Linn County Mental Health Access Center is seeing an increase in need for its services. Leaders hope to expand the hours of the center to 24/7 and they’re discussing a Youth Assessment Center.

Program in 18 Iowa counties gives option to calling police

Iowa will receive about $6 million in federal grant dollars to help schools address student well-being as part of the bipartisan gun violence bill signed in June.