Sarah Berndt named to state Mental Health and Disabilities Services Commission

Rural Iowa is getting another voice on the Iowa Mental Health and Disabilities Services (MHDS) Commission.

Sarah Berndt, the Henry County coordinator for the Southeast Iowa Link (SEIL) region, has been appointed to the MHDS Commission by Gov. Kim Reynolds. Berndt’s appointment runs until June 30, 2024.

Berndt has a long history working in mental health, working for mental health in Henry County for 20 years.

Berndt said that she hopes to bring a rural perspective to the commission.

“I think that my skill set is going to be very valuable in representing the Mental Health and Disability Services and delivery of those services from the perspective of a rural region,” she said. “The way we can provide services is vastly different and much more complex than the way urban centers can provide and deliver those services.

“I think it will be very important for me to communicate what difficulties occur when we’re trying to provide services and trying to get providers to be able to provide those services. We don’t have those providers in the workforce to be able to do that.”

She said that it is “extremely important” to get the voices of rural communities heard in Des Moines.

“It becomes very difficult to become a voice that is the same pitch or louder than those urban centers,” Berndt said. “You hear that legislators are in Des Moines, and they’ll hear from the Des Moines perspective. They really need to hear from the rural perspective, because we’re not able to get the workforce to us.”

She said that attracting mental health providers and workers to rural areas is a challenge.

“One of the things that we wrote up in our reports to the governor that there really needs to be a focus on the development of access to providers and to figure out some way to recruit employees who work in the Mental Health and Disability Services field,” she said.

The commission is made up of a cross section of people in the mental health field.

“The commission is required to have Mental Health and Disability Services coordinators as members,” Berndt said. “There’s a strict list of the types of members that they have to have.”

In addition to MHDS coordinators, the commission is required to have representatives from county boards of supervisors, people from provider agencies, a parent of a child consumer, a veteran, somebody who receives services, someone from the mental health center community and the substance abuse disorder community.

“It’s pretty comprehensive behavioral health services representation on the commission,” Berndt said.

The MHDS Commission is the state policymaking body for the provision of services to people with mental illness, intellectual disabilities or other developmental disabilities or brain injury.

The commission consists of 18 members appointed by the governor.

It was established to give direction to the governor and Legislature regarding issues related to mental health and disability services.