Mental Health hits home: Part Five of a five-part series offering local perspectives as May is observed as Mental Health Awareness Month

by Dwight Jones

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Discussing mental health and/or acknowledging you or someone you know may have a problem can be a difficult subject to talk about and even harder to understand. In order to try to better recognize mental health issues, The Standard has been running a five-part series throughout the month of May to look at how mental illness affects the local community and the resources available should you or someone you love be looking for help or information.

Parts One through Three told stories of local individuals that have dealt with mental illness either themselves or within their families. Part Four detailed a local group that is working hard to provide resources to help individuals and families affected by this disease.

For this fifth and final part of the series, we sat down with Allamakee County Sheriff Clark Mellick and Waukon Chief of Police Paul Wagner to discuss how mental health affects their jobs day-to-day and what changes have occurred in recent years in addressing individuals with mental illness.

Both Mellick and Wagner agreed that there definitely seems to be an uptick in the number of mental health related calls their departments receive, but were uncertain exactly how much mental illness has increased vs. individuals being more comfortable reaching out for help, more social media/media coverage or a combination of all the above.

Mellick described the process his department uses when taking a call that involves someone appearing to be engaged in a mental illness crisis. Mellick explained that he and his staff are not trained to diagnose nor treat a mental illness patient, so should an individual show signs of such a crisis, an officer will take the individual to the local hospital where he/she will be evaluated by the local doctor and if the need is determined for further evaluation, they use a Telehealth system to have a mental health expert interview the individual remotely to further determine the severity of the illness and institute the best next steps in getting the patient the care they need.

Wagner explained that his department has been utilizing an organization called Elevate out of the Waterloo area for the past couple of years, which he says has been a great asset. When the Waukon Police Department initiates contact with an Elevate staff member, their firm takes over, up to and including getting someone on-site quickly, which allows the Waukon officer to get back to his/her responsibilities while putting the patient in the care of someone trained to assist in getting the help they desperately need.

Both Mellick and Wagner explained that they feel that through the above-listed resources, additional training, etc., law enforcement at the local, county and state levels is better prepared to handle the seemingly ever-increasing number of mental health-related calls.

Wagner further explained that he feels that social media has helped light the fire in the growth of mental illness, anxiety, etc. What people are willing to say online vs. in-person is much different, and unfortunately, the comments made are often negative and many people, especially teenagers, take the comments to heart, which can fan the flames of depression and anxiety.

Should you or someone you know have mental health questions or concerns, you can reach the NAMI Northeast Iowa office at 563-293-6264 or email namineiowa@gmail.com.

In addition to NAMI Northeast Iowa, we encourage you to make an appointment with your family doctor or see a therapist. Also, the National Institute of Mental Health has a website with a tremendous amount of helpful information and can be found at nimh.nih.gov. In severe cases, dial 988 from any phone to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline offered to everyone 24 hours of every day through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.