On a Wednesday morning in late February, Kenneth Bensley and TJ Wood rushed to their Waukee subdivision. Dallas County police officers who responded, as part of the West Des Moines Police Department's joint response team, hoped the pair could help the men facing eviction find mental health services.
On the drive to his Waukee home, Bensley, a longtime suburban police officer, and Wood, a crisis intervention specialist, scrutinized the details. County deputies said they found a man barricaded inside a house they thought had already been vacated. They said they believed they heard gunshots coming from inside the home and set up a perimeter, eventually forcing the man off the property.
Bensley said officers realized the man was in crisis and needed help rather than jail and considered asking for additional help.
“Customers define the crisis. We're just responding to the situation they're in,” Wood said. “Sometimes we discuss the situation with them or just listen. Some people just need an ear. Others go to a crisis center or hospital or go into rehab. You may need some guidance.”
Bensley and Wood make up one of Heart of Iowa Community Services' few joint response teams. In recent years, the program has rescued hundreds of people in crisis from prison and connected them to appropriate resources. Heart of Iowa plans to expand the program to local cities such as Pella and Knoxville, but now lawmakers are working on Gov. Kim Reynolds' proposal to overhaul the state's mental health and disability services. Because we are considering it, we are facing uncertainty.
Both the House and Senate versions of the bill have passed committee votes and are awaiting debate.
Governor Reynolds' proposal would consolidate services into seven districts
Heart of Iowa CEO Darcy Alt said the governor's proposal to overhaul Iowa's mental health and substance use treatment services by establishing a behavioral health services system is one of several mental health advocates who have expressed concern.
State officials said the new system is aimed at creating equitable access for Iowans and will be made up of seven “unified districts.” The new district will consolidate the state's 32 regional regions, including 13 mental health and disability service regions and 19 integrated provider networks that oversee substance use and problem gambling services.
more:Kim Reynolds announced a plan to rebuild Iowa's mental health system. The contents are as follows.
“Twenty-five percent of adults with serious mental health issues also suffer from substance use disorders,” Reynolds said in a statement last month. “But right now, that system is broken and People are not getting the support they need.” Consolidating these 32 separate regions into her seven unified regions will improve coordination of services and provide better care to Iowans. ”
The new bill directs the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services to hire an Administrative Services Organization (ASO) to oversee each of the seven districts and their service clusters. HHS will maintain a central data repository to track the new system and its impact, and will use that data to track behavioral health needs, develop policy, and otherwise They will be tasked with implementing the necessary measures to strengthen health.
State leaders said they plan to finalize the details of the system's day-to-day functioning in the coming months. The system is expected to be fully operational by July 1, 2025.
CEO says 'we are stabilizing' people who need care
Alt said she agrees with parts of the proposal, but doesn't know what it means for her agency, which is one of MHDS' 13 regions and supports Audubon, Dallas and Guthrie County residents. He said he was worried about what that meant.
She said she was concerned about whether programs like Co-Respondent Team would meet the system's new requirements or how the system would affect funding. She said she wanted to see how the new system would impact organizations like hers that are already working to rebuild and grow their services.
“The state is changing what we’re doing here from what we’re doing here, and that’s where we’re a little bit panicked,” Alt said. “We have data that shows we are keeping people out of hospital beds.
“We are triaging people in the community and stabilizing them in the community.”
more:Rural Iowa faces mental health care crisis, superintendent calls for more help
In addition to West Des Moines, joint response teams have been established at police departments in suburban Waukee, Clive and Urbandale. The team pairs police officers and mental health professionals dedicated to reporting people in crisis to provide immediate and direct service.
This model is slightly different from mobile crisis services, which are typically led by mental health professionals. Patrol officers will likely be dispatched first before mental health professionals are brought to the scene.
Heart of Iowa and its affiliated mental health services and provider, Inside Out Wellness and Advocacy, established their first team in Waukee in 2022, followed by other nearby cities.
Chris Kickbusch, who helps lead Waukee's joint response team as a crisis intervention officer, sees value in a model that focuses on understanding and prioritizing people's health and needs. He said there was. Having completed the necessary training to join his new team, Kickbusch said patrol officers who respond to calls of people in crisis may not know how to help or what resources to communicate. I explained that there is.
As Kickbusch reflected on his role as a patrol officer in front of the joint response team, he was unsure of what services to provide to those in need. However, he said, “Once I got this role, it was like the script was flipped.''
Teams also spend time following up with people in crisis
Since May of last year, West Des Moines' first joint response team has responded to hundreds of calls, spending about 21,357 minutes, or about 356 hours, working closely with people and providing services, according to police data. It has been connected to Wood said the majority of calls (about 75%) involve people struggling with alcoholism across racial and economic lines.
According to police data, the team spent exactly 11,111 minutes, or approximately 185 hours, tracking down the individual to provide further assistance.
Bensley and Wood said their follow-up has been extensive. Sometimes it sounds like the phone calls go on and on, and other times it spurs weekly check-ins and regular conversations.
“I've worked in the human services field for six years,” Wood said. “It's always an uphill battle because people feel like their problems aren't worth considering, or like me, they don't care about their mental health at all. Growing up in a family that (thought) mental health was mental health. It was a sign of weakness.”
Bensley said others have asked him and Wood to contact him more often as a way to hold them accountable and remind them they're not alone. Bensley said he and Wood care and that's why they give a few more chances to people who don't answer the phone the first few times. Wood added that the team's work extends not only to them, but sometimes to supporting their families and friends.
Bensley and Wood said they believe the co-respondent model has been successful so far and is essential to combating mental health stigma at the local level. Alt said the team has bridged the gap between law enforcement officers, mental health advocates and people in need.
“I can say that the positive impact these programs are currently having on the communities in which they are based is far beyond anything we could have imagined. I am very grateful to the institution that gave me this,” Alto said. “That was definitely the trigger.”
Reporter Michaela Lamb contributed to this article.
F. Amanda Tugard covers social justice issues for the Des Moines Register. Email us at ftugade@dmreg.com or follow us on Twitter. @writefelissa.
