Supervisors eye smaller-scale mental health services provider

by Savannah Howe

Cerro Gordo County is taking strides to move away from County Social Services (CSS), a 22-county-wide mental health and disability services program, to Central Iowa Crisis Services (CICS), a similar organization that serves neighboring counties such as Franklin and Greene.

The need for change

Cerro Gordo County Supervisor Chris Watts said that it’s time for the county to pursue a service that can offer more immediate and personal help to people in need in the county.

“[CICS] seems like a better fit for all of Cerro Gordo County, including rural areas south of Mason City, where the people on the Franklin County border may know of CICS’s services,” explained Watts. “In my opinion, CSS is too big to function like it used to anymore. Sometimes, the phrase ‘bigger is better’ is not true.”

CSS serves 22 Iowa counties stretching from the Mississippi River to the western Emmet County, a four-hour drive in all.

Watts explained that CICS appeals to the county because it currently serves just 11 counties and doesn’t aim to grow to CSS’s size.

“In fact, CICS wouldn’t even accept Cerro Gordo if it weren’t for the facilities we can offer,” he continued. “We have Mercy’s hospital and offices, and Prairie Ridge.”

The Cerro Gordo County Board of Supervisors recently approved the motion to give CICS permission to perform financial research on the county; CICS will contact the state to find out if it can feasibly take on Cerro Gordo as a 12th jurisdiction.

Should the state decide that CICS and Cerro Gordo can form a partnership, the county must  declare separation from CSS by Nov. 1 of this year. However, the county won’t transition to CICS until the start of Fiscal Year 2019.

“If we switched services in the middle of the fiscal year, that would put a burden on everyone, including taxpayers,” stated Watts, “and we don’t want to put a financial strain on anyone.”

Residents of the county who use resources provided by CSS wouldn’t have to worry about an interruption of services during those eight months, however.  Watts explained that one of the first things that the county supervisors would address with CICS is the availability of state-mandated core mental health, behavioral and disability services.

“It is our due diligence as county supervisors to make sure that happens,” Watts said. “Also, we would ask CICS for employee retention. We have

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excellent staff serving the county right now through CSS.”

Another plus to the transition would be a lower mental health levy, which would lower the necessary amount of tax dollars funneled into the program while still maintaining all the services offered.

However, joining the nearby counties under CICS’s umbrella was originally Cerro Gordo County’s plan B.

Plan A: A region of their own

According to Supervisor Watts, the county originally wanted to break away from CSS and form a mental health services region of its own, along with eight to 10 other neighboring counties.

“We went through a series of three meetings with county supervisors and health care providers considering this option,” said Watts, “but the break-away wouldn’t be as easy as it sounds.”

Watts said that the county went to Linda Upmeyer, Speaker of the Iowa House of Representatives, and had legislation passed in May of this year that would allow Cerro Gordo and others to form their own region, contingent on the compliance of these three stipulations:

The population of the new region must meet or exceed 100,000 people; the borders of all counties involved must be contiguous; and a municipality with 24,000 people or more must serve as a lead, or headquarters, for the region, which would have been Mason City or Fort Dodge.

In the end, as more and more obstacles arose, the supervisors decided that the benefits of joining CICS outweighed those of breaking off on their own.

“It was too difficult to get an accurate representation of what the true costs of a new region would be,” said Watts. “CICS looks like the best move for us.”

CICS in other counties

CICS has made an impact in Central Iowa counties with its introduction of a mobile crisis response unit.

The unit responds to a distress call dispatched from a 24-hour phone line and assists people experiencing a mental health crisis on scene. The calls can be made by the victim, a relative, a law enforcement officer or a health care provider.

Meghan Freie, project manager for CICS, said over 100 crisis calls have been received, a majority of which were stabilized in-person through counseling. Other calls reached resolution through hospital admission. The volume of calls coming in reflects the need and importance of this kind of service, she said.

Before the mobile crisis unit was offered, calls of this nature were deflected to hospitals, resulting in shortage of beds and hospital care.

“If we can deescalate [without a hospital], that’s good for both the person and the mental health system,” Freie said.

The unit is composed of an experienced team of mental health professionals, who have a bachelor’s degree in a relevant field or equivalent human services experience.

Additionally, CICS offers referrals to inpatient and outpatient therapies for mental and physical health. CICS professionals can assist clients in prescription management, coordination for in-home health and tele-psychiatry to incarcerated individuals.

The program also places value on education services. Through CICS, people can acquire mental health first aid training, attend public health seminars or seek guidance in becoming qualified to be a mental health service provider.

The services offered by CICS are free to the clients that use them and, while funded by taxpayer dollars, still lower the cost of mental health services shouldered by taxpaying community members by keeping unnecessary ER visits to a minimum.

Freie said that these services are valuable to schools who need help with behavioral services, families who need grief counseling and more.

The future of CICS’s involvement in Cerro Gordo County will remain indeterminate until the CICS’s Board of Executives meets at the end of August following their reconnaissance with the state; if the conditions are favorable, supervisors will reconvene to declare intent to join CICS by Nov 1.

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