Earlier this year, the Iowa City Community School District and Clear Creek Amana School District partnered with CommUnity, a local food bank and crisis service, to provide support for students who are struggling. In January, the position of Youth Mobile Crisis Coordinator was created at CommUnity specifically to help students in our area.

“It was clear that youth mental health conditions were increasing. More youth were dealing with things like depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. We saw that the pandemic just created a lot of disruptions in everyone’s life. Especially youth struggle a lot with some of the changes that the pandemic caused,” said Parth Patel, who was promoted to fill this new position. “I think my agency, CommUnity, just recognizes that and we want to do what we can to provide students, families and school staff with more emotional support.”

Patel’s job is to respond to situations where someone is having a mental health crisis, check in with them and provide support. He will also connect them with other resources in our area, to help prevent other crises from happening in the future.

“The aim of this position is to increase the support that schools and youth can access in our area by providing the appropriate kind of support to students in crisis… Because of special agreements currently signed with ICCSD and CCA school district, we will be able to work more closely with schools in these areas to provide crisis counseling in the school setting and will hopefully be utilized in a much wider capacity than we have been in the past,” said Jacob Story, the Mobile Crisis Manager at CommUnity.

This new service is free and available to anyone under 18 regardless of insurance or socioeconomic status. The Crisis Line is also accessible 24/7 and every day of the year.

“If a student is feeling like they’re having a mental health crisis, and that can just look like intense depression or anxiety or feeling like they are struggling or overwhelmed by something, they can call me. All they have to do is go to the office and tell the counselors or SFA that they want to call Parth over at Community crisis services, and the SFA counselor can just dial the mobile crisis dispatch number,” said Patel.

If a student is not at school, they can still get help through this service, by calling the CommUnity mobile crisis dispatch number at 1-855-581-8111. This way, Patel or another mobile crisis counselor will be able to respond and deescalate the situation.

A mental health crisis can occur for many different reasons, whether an individual has a mental illness, such as anxiety or depression, or is just going through a difficult situation or relationship. CommUnity is prepared to help anyone, regardless of what they are struggling with.

“Mental health crisis looks different for everyone. For one person, it may be feeling like you can’t control your emotions, to another person, it may be a looming appointment that is causing so much anxiety they’re having a hard time seeing past that moment. Still others experience thoughts of suicide, self-harm, and/or hallucinations. What is important to remember is, if you feel like you’re in crisis, then you are. Mobile Crisis is trained to be client-centered, which means it’s the people we’re providing support to that define what’s going on for them,” said Story.

Annie Gudenkauf, a Student Family Advocate at West High, thinks that this new service will help students who are struggling in our area.

“I think that Student Family Advocates are super busy in the schools, so it can be really helpful to have another ally to help provide mental health resources for students that might be in crisis. I also think it’s important because sometimes kids don’t want to talk to somebody at school about how they’re feeling and it can be helpful to have an outside ear come in and be an advocate for them, and I think Parth does a really great job,” said Gudenkauf.

SFAs are another great resource to help students with problems regarding mental health or anything outside of academics. She and Christine Dougan, West High’s other SFA, provide counseling, check-ins and a safe place for students who are struggling. They also try to help connect students with resources, if they need help with getting more food or warm clothes for winter or anything else. Any student at West can talk to an SFA, by making an appointment or just stopping by the guidance office. Students who are struggling can also take advantage of mental health days.

Even outside of school, there are many resources available in the Iowa City area.
Four Oaks works in all 99 counties in Iowa and helps families with mental and behavioral health, as well as poverty, homelessness and unemployment. Dream City is a non-profit business in Iowa City that runs programs for kids and families to build leadership skills, community involvement in addition to providing social and educational support. United Action for Youth is another nonprofit organization in Iowa City with services for anyone 12-18 that provides counseling, support groups, therapy and other programs. Additionally, Neighborhood Centers of Johnson County offer support for families, before and after school programs, tutoring, summer camps as well as health and wellness programs.

“We see mental health as important as physical health, and part of that means that some days we feel too mentally sick to come to school and that’s ok and I’m really glad that West is being supportive of that. So all you need to do is have your parents call in like a sick day… we hope that when you take those days, that you get some rest and also engage in some healthy activities to help you cope with what you’re struggling with,” said Gudenkauf.