This fall, the Scanlan Center for School Mental Health Clinic will open it's doors in downtown Iowa City, offering services to Iowa's K-12 school staff, educators and students. Since it's inception in June 2021, the Scanlan Center has continued to hear how needed mental health supports are in Iowa's schools. Scanlan is addressing that need by providing in-person care to local clients, while primarily offering services via telehealth. Their goal is to reach the underserved and rural areas of the state where others cannot.
The following is an excerpt from the Iowa City Press-Citizen article:
The clinic is one component of the statewide, K-12 UI mental health center announced last summer. Besides clinical care, it aims to improve mental health via avenues like research and educator training.
"Our hope is to be able to go to schools after there has been a crisis or a trauma, and to be able to meet with students, staff — whoever's in need — to provide some of that immediate support," Alissa Doobay, director of clinical services for the ICSMH, told the regents on Thursday.
Doobay described the need for counseling in Iowa as "bottomless."
Sixteen percent of Iowans between ages 12-17 have a mental health disorder, staff from the ICSMH told the regents, but less than half receive treatment.
Meanwhile, a 2021 statewide survey found nearly one in four Iowa 11th-grade students, or 24%, reported attempting suicide in the past year. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among Iowa adolescents.