OTTUMWA — The Wapello County Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a mental health strategic plan, laying out goals and initiatives on mental health issues in the county for the next three years.

Carol Logan, the county’s Central Point of Coordination administrator, presented the plan to the board.

The main goals of the plan include conducting a needs assessment survey, improving the quality of the mental health services locally, expanding the availability of services for consumers with Chronic Mental Illness, striving for better training for staff and support people and developing better relationships with emergency room staff at local hospitals, Logan said.

“[There have been] difficulties with emergency room staff understanding needs of people with disabilities. The emergency room doesn’t seem to have a lot of experience with folks with disabilities,” she said.

Supervisor Jerry Parker said this isn’t a new issue.

“This one didn’t just happen today. So my guess is that we have had attempts in the past to correct this problem. Obviously the attempts or education wasn’t successful,” he said.

Logan said they hope to get support from hospital administration and find someone there to be a liaison and continue educating staff.

One of the goals on the plan, requested by stakeholders, was to look at the feasibility of doing county case management.

Currently, all of Wapello County’s cases go through Southeast Iowa Case Management, which also provides services to other area counties.

Mary Dubert, a private contractor, presented the board with a report analyzing the county’s options for case management services.

Dubert proposed a few different options for providing this service including continuing with SICM; contracting with the Department of Human Services; choosing to provide targeted case management themselves, which could include either the county hiring their own staff or county contracting directly with a private non-profit provider.

Though, the information was presented to the board to inform them on the options, no action was taken on the issue and the supervisors asked for more information.

Meanwhile, the board approved county regulations during RAGBRAI July 22-24.

There was only one minor change made from the first reading of the ordinance.

“The ordinance is the same, except the definition made reference to city code, now that is spelled out that code,” said Supervisor Greg Kenning.