NORTHWOOD — A group of 22 counties in northern Iowa says it’s close to implementing a plan to restructure regional mental health services.
Counties in the County Social Services group work together to fund mental health services in the region by pooling their property tax allotments, which is currently a budget of about $16 million to $18 million. Services administrator Bob Lincoln says “What we’ve done as a system is we’ve closed down those (state institution) beds and, I would argue, we haven’t built up the alternative community capacity.”
A large part of the restructuring plan, which is designed to make better use of existing resources, includes refocusing the 10-bed unit at Adult Crisis Stabilization Services in Waterloo from non-medical crisis stabilization unit to a medical unit.