Lawmakers say the stories they’ve heard from patients and families are spurring some major reforms of Iowa’s mental health care system. Mary Neubauer of Clive wrote a widely-read obituary for her son, Sergei, in late September after he took his own life. This is how Neubauer explained her family’s predicament during a news conference in early March:

“When it became obvious that Sergei needed long term, residential mental health care for his illnesses, it simply didn’t exist in Iowa and that is a horrible feeling.” Senator Charles Schneider of West Des Moines met with Sergei Neubauer’s parents shortly after the young man’s funeral. Schneider says the meeting helped him better understand the shortage of treatment options for Iowans who need in-patient treatment, but not in a hospital psych ward.

“That’s the problem that they experienced when they were trying to find help for their son,” Schneider says, “so that’s how it helped me and I’m sure that story, if it helped me, probably helped every other legislator they talked to.” Today (Thursday) Governor Kim Reynolds will sign two related bills into law. One will require school employees to undergo at least an hour’s worth of suicide prevention training each year. The other seeks to address flaws in the system for treating mentally ill Iowans.

Representative Timi Brown-Powers of Waterloo says during a meeting earlier this year, she kept her head bowed as Neubauer spoke of trying to find treatment for her son’s depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress.  “Although we’re ripping a scab off of a wound, that’s how we get stuff accomplished down here,” Brown-Powers says. “And those stories do matter.” A University of Northern Iowa political science professor says studies confirm personal stories rather than raw statistics are what move people to action.

Advocates who worked on these two bills say the next step is to lobby legislators to provide more MONEY for the mental health care system. Peggy Huppert is the state director for the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “We’ve reached a tipping point on this issue,” Huppert said. “Mental illness affects tens of thousands of Iowans and they’re raised their voices to say in unison: ‘More must be done.'” The governor is scheduled to sign the two bills into law later this (Thursday) morning.

(Radio Iowa)