DES MOINES, Iowa — According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness Iowa chapter, mental health issues touch a lot of Iowans — around one in five.

The group met on Wednesday for its annual Mental Health Day on the Hill. Part of the meeting is for family members and mental health providers to tell their story to lawmakers.

A big focus is on stopping a proposed law which would place a work requirement on Medicaid recipients.

“The bill that we’re opposing is House File 615, the reason we’re opposing is because it would enforce work requirements for Medicaid,” said Jamie Stokka, National Alliance on Mental Illness in Iowa. NAMI, as an organization, is opposed to any requirements on work for Medicaid or any other kind of requirements that would raise a barrier of access for people who need it.”

NAMI Iowa has other bills it is in favor of.

“We have HF 312; it’s a bill that we’re calling the ‘Psychiatric Deterioration Prevention’ bill,” said Stokka. “It is a bill that would lower the threshold so that people who have serious mental illness are able to receive services before the stage of severity where they are a risk to themselves or others.”

NAMI Iowa also favors a tax credit for people who buy a gun safe. That’s seen as a measure to save lives of those with mental health issues who may be prone to self-harm.

Exhibitors took to the Capitol Rotunda with services for those struggling with mental health. Sue Gehling, of Carroll, runs a company called Classroom Clinic. This firm provides mental health counseling to over 40 schools across Iowa via remote tele-cast or a zoom-like program.

“I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner and I’m from Carroll and I started Classroom Clinic which is a school base tele-health company that provide schools with timely and convenient access to children’s mental healthcare,” said Gehling. “We try to remove all the barriers and make it easier for families to access services.”

“A lot of kids have a lot of mental health issues and that’s affecting attendance so there’s a chronic absenteeism problem in our schools as well because some kids have high anxiety and won’t even get into the building at school,” said Gehling. “When they do get to the building they kind of shut down and have trouble regulating themselves so then they’re not learning, so way for kids to be successful academically to be able to learn.”

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