Des Moines County supervisors learn about mental health hotline set to launch in July

The Des Moines County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday heard from a number of community organizations that offer services to people with mental illnesses.

The Southeast Iowa Regional Link mental health system is gearing up to restart programs which are aimed at helping individuals with mental illness avoid jail.

“It it about keeping people with mental illness in the community,” said Henry County Mental Health and Disability Services Coordinator Sara Bernd, who also runs the region’s jail diversion program.

SEIL is one of a handful of mental health regions in Iowa that run the state's in the health system. Regions are required to have a number of core services aimed at helping children and adults with mental health issues. Some services are funded through Medicaid while others are funded through Medicare or more general mental health tax dollars.

Part of the program is geared toward helping to reduce the number of people with mental health conditions in jail. Part of how SEIL accomplishes this goal is through its jail diversion program, Transitional Link.

Berndt explained part of the program is diversion at every level, ranging from keeping individuals from having 911 called to assist them to ensuring that individuals are set up for success when they get out of prison, depending on how the person can be best helped.

There is hope that a new emergency number will help get mental health calls answered in a better fashion by moving them from 911 centers to new mental health centers.

Mental Health Crisis Helpline 988 is set to launch in July, with funding coming down from the federal government to pay for the endeavor.

The idea of creating a universal number to call for mental health crisis, including incidents of suicidal ideation, has been in talks for years with the official decision to create a simplified hotline number coming in 2019. In Iowa, calls to crisis lines, and 988, are routed to Iowa City, where Iowa-based volunteers help people work through immediate crisis and connect them to long-term supports.

An eventual goal of a 988 line is to have local supports in a similar way 911 has for other emergencies, thereby connecting those in need with people who can help.

The next step of diversion is training law enforcement officers to be able to better respond to mental health-related calls.

At one point, there were 42 police officers in the eight counties served by SEIL that were certified for crisis intervention, but many have left since then. Sgt. Chad Zahn said about 14 of the Burlington Police Department's 45 officers are certified for Crisis Intervention Training.

When an individual has been arrested, services then move toward getting the person stable in jail and continuing that stability once the individual has been released from jail.

Zahn said he wants to see a future where police are not the primary call for those with mental health issues, who he said are equpped to handle crime, not mental health calls.

Berndt agreed, saying police officers are trained to fight crime, not mental illness, and ideally there would be social workers and mental health staff to handle such calls, but such a future is still a long way in the making.

Other community programs

The SEIL region also has a number of other programs that can help those with mental illness deal with both their illness and their addiction.

One such example is the River Cross program. The program, which can house up to 15 individuals, is a multi-faceted approach to treatment centering on treating other mental health and substance abuse.

However, the program is voluntary, which means it is not an option for those who are serving time in jail.

Alcohol and Drug Dependency Services provides short-term inpatient drug treatment programs to those in need, including those with mental illnesses. ADDS also provides services for anyone in need of drug dependency services.

SEIL CEO RyAnne Wood hopes that Des Moines County soon will see another mental health region. While details are still in the works, what is known is that Eagle View Health Services has applied for a grant which that would help it bring a 24/7 behavioral health center to the Burlington area and would provide police officers a place to take those with mental health issues.

Supervisor Jim Cary agreed that the reason the county ultimately handles these programs is to give individuals who need them the best life they can live.

This article originally appeared on The Hawk Eye: Des Moines County supervisors discuss jail diversion, mental health