The University of Iowa’s Scanlan Center for School Mental Health is expanding its services to offer psychiatric care to students ages ten and up anywhere in Iowa. UI Professor and Psychiatrist Dr. Amanda Elliott will lead the new initiative, for which she says there’s great need. Elliott says a federal study found nearly 90-percent of Iowa counties are considered mental health care professional shortage areas.
Most of rural Iowa is a mental health care desert, as Elliott says is evidenced in a 2022 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The services will start, Elliott says, with an interview-based assessment of a student’s symptoms, past histories and past treatments, and determining if there are any medication options. She says school districts would set up a tele-health visit on-site along with a primary care provider who’s involved with the student.
Studies find one in six American kids between the ages of six and 17 experience a mental health disorder each year, while suicide is the 2nd-leading cause of death for teens and young adults. Elliott says the Iowa City-based clinic is offering psychotherapy services to students — and to teachers. The model is designed to improve access to mental health professionals for kids as young as ten and up through high school graduation.
The UI’s Scanlan Center is already a state leader in student mental health. In the past year, it provided nearly 13-hundred clinical service appointments and more than one-thousand counseling appointments for students in 72 school districts across 60 Iowa counties. Elliott says a majority of Scanlan’s clients are from rural communities. Referrals come through school mental health professionals or A-E-As. For more information, contact the center via email at: [email protected]. Find out more online at www.scsmh.education.uiowa.edu/.
