MHC Mission, Vision and Strategic Plan

Our Mission

Our Values

Our Vision

Our Purpose

Primary Strategic Planning

Our Mission Statement		Back To Top
The mission of the Mental Health Center is:
	The Mental Health Center is organized not for profit purposes and is established to promote and safeguard the mental health of the citizenry. Drawing upon psychiatric, psychological, social work, and other mental health resources, the Center shall offer a range of professional, community-based mental health services for prevention, education, consultation, diagnosis, treatment and psychiatric emergencies. The Center will cooperate with and provide services to individuals, public authorities, public and private, social and human service agencies and other organizations for the prevention and treatment of mental, emotional, and behavioral dysfunctions. The leadership of the Center will be responsible for assuring that the services of the Center address the mental health needs of the citizenry residing in the service area.

Our Organizational Values	Back To Top
The Mental Health Center has adopted a set of organizational values to reflect its mission across staff and across services. Organizational values of the Center have been defined in the Center’s Operations Manual and embraces:
Respect: Those involved with the Center recognize and demonstrate respect for the individual and for those we serve and work. Effectiveness: Services and service actions are taken in ways that meet needs and reach outcomes. Responsiveness: Services are based on consumer and community needs and are implemented in ways that link Center resources in a timely way to identified needs. Quality: What we do reflects high service standards and incorporates current knowledge in the field of mental health. Empowerment: The focus of service is on the consumer increasing mastery of their own life through use of personal, community and relational resources. Participation: Services are designed and implemented in a collaborative manner that encourages and supports the active participation of those who use services of the Center.

Our Vision Statement	Back To Top
The Mental Health Center has adopted a succinct and clear statement of vision that incorporates its mission and values. For this purpose, emphasis is on the Center’s services and focusing on the empowering of the individual served in a personalized and individual manner as the product that is made available through its services. The Center’s vision is:
Mental Health Center Of North Iowa - Making Empowerment Personal

Our Purpose

This strategic plan is developed by the Mental Health Center of North Iowa to guide its direction over the next five years by identifying key areas of attention. Drawn from community meetings, surveys and key informant interviews, key areas were identified along with more specific action items considered important for the mental health center to address. Earlier in the history of the Center, strategic plans focused on developing specific programs and services by the organization and the community. With the evolution of mental health those services have now been established in our community. This strategic plan focuses more on initiatives and direction from which more specific actions can be based. The plan does not seek to establish a priority or sequence in which the directions are to be taken. The actions of the board, staff and administration will guide their implementation and be reflected in the Center’s program planning.

	Primary Strategic Planning Areas Guiding The Center	Back To Top
	2001 - 2006

1.	2.	3.	4.	5.	6.	7.	8.
Enhance a sustainable funding...	Build upon and refine services...	Provide innovative services...	Increase community awareness...	Build effective services...	Expand and refine options...	Provide service options...	Provide a comprehensive set of services.

1.	Enhance a sustainable funding mechanism that supports the primary mission of the Center in providing affordable accessible out patient services to children, adults and families.	Up
	Narrative
	The Center’s internal studies complimented by an extensive external study by Piper Jaffrey in 1997 noted the importance of an on-going process over the coming years to have a sustainable funding system to support the mission of the organization. Considerations of a fee based system would dramatically alter the way services are provided and to whom they are targeted. 70% of those served by the Center are at or below median income for Iowa . Nearly 50% of the consumers served by the Mental Health Center are on Medicare and Medicaid. For this reason, a continual refinement of a sustainable system of funding that optimizes access and minimizes barriers is seen as a primary item of attention at governance and all levels of Center operations.
	Action Items
	Integration of CPC application criteria with Center admission process. Periodic regional meetings with central points of coordination to review services and patterns. Increase community understanding of how mental health services are funded. Exploration and integration of grant funds. Active billing to third parties. Advocate for mental health parity. Advocate for adequate funding of mental health services. Promote and support actions that streamline and reduce funding barriers to consumers access to service.

2.	Build upon and refine services that are consistent with the community mental health referral system that support consumers in optimizing their desired goals of living, learning, working and socialization in the least restrictive setting.	Up
	Narrative
	Serving the mental health needs from a community- based model, linked to other community resources is a fundamental element to the Centers operations. Doing so is in contrast to a private model of practice where selective consumer groups or areas of practice are emphasized. Consumers and providers define the mental health center as an expert resource well grounded in its area of service delivery. What is sought is a continuation of that direction by doing more rather than less – building more options rather than reducing them as the Center takes action over the next five years.
	Action Items
	Maintain a clear and continuing focus on provision of community based mental health services. Provide for the range of mental health service needs in the community serving consumers across factors; socio-economic status, ethnicity, age and gender. Link out patient services to various levels of intensity of consumer needs. Target services to children’s mental health needs. Provide out patient services to high need and high risk consumers such as those with trauma, abuse, multi-faceted needs. Deploy single episode, brief and on-going treatment options . Assist in transitioning of children, and adults into community living. Maintain a well trained and experienced staff who understand the community. Expand weekend and evening appointment times. Continue the emphasis on having the Center offer the most current research and practice established skills in mental health here in North Iowa . Implement Health 2010 recommendations.

3.	Provide innovative and responsive services addressing emerging mental health needs in the communities served.	Up
	Narrative
	While providing for established or planned responses to community needs, the Center needs to be responsive to those issues that suddenly develop or emerge over time. Important priorities include:
	Action Items
	Responding to natural disasters. Addressing farm and rural life concerns. Responding to the needs of the homeless. Plant closings. Mental health needs of children and youth. Mental health needs of elders. Dually diagnosed. Maintain flexibility in service services. Target services to risk groups including those identified: middle and high school students. parents with young children early childhood mental health. adults with serious and persistent mental illness. family adjustment issues.

4.	Increase community awareness to mental health needs and services through prevention and early intervention.	Up
	Narrative
	Although one in five in North Iowa experience a treatable mental health condition, few recognize and even fewer still get the treatment they need. At the same time less then 5% of the Center’s resources are directed to prevention and education. This area is repeatedly identified by consumer and community groups as an under resourced priority.
	Action Items
	Increase the communities awareness of mental health and service options. Develop initiative to expand information and awareness of depression and suicide. Develop initiatives that expand the awareness to children’s mental health needs. Develop programs to assist family and interested parties to better understand specific mental health conditions and build expanded supports. Expand the number of self help and support groups and activities. Increase the number of community education offerings and workshops. Continue the Center’s present initiative on helping to build skills for individuals and organizations to emphasize safe handling of relationship conflicts in the work setting. Expand community understanding of serious mental health conditions, early warning signs and interventions available.

5.	Build effective collaborative and integrative services that optimize resources and consumer access to effective mental health services.	Up
	Narrative
	Providing an array of community-based mental health services was an important element to the core of the Center’s mission. The second important element identified by the Center’s study is doing so in a collaborative and partnering way. To do so means an emphasis on finding ways to plan and communicate across agencies and across the boundaries of service--whether those are defined by age, territory or service. Doing so means the Center needs to incorporate an understanding of how other systems work so that services are integrated and a way that optimizes the consumer’s outcome. Results from this study indicate that though this may be a complex and difficult journey, it is the logical way to best use resources where possible.
	Action Items
	Develop coordination and linkage relationships with core referral sources. Develop team or across agency responses to consumer and community needs to supplement traditional in office treatment. Develop pilot and demonstration projects around targeted needs through cooperative ventures. Assist with developing expanded affordable housing. Assist with accessible transportation. Assist with consumer access to affordable health insurance and access to medications. Assist farm and rural communities with the emotional and mental health aspects of a changing environment. Develop mental health services in the schools and with risk students. Identify services to consumers with dual diagnosis. Work with elders and their families to remain in the home and to address family adjustment to elder mental health needs. Develop mental health interventions and programs to work with corrections, juvenile court, district including addressing mental health needs from more effective services through: Diversion projects. Integrated mental health services. Non-adversarial approaches. Assessment and consultation services. Post divorce.

6.	Expand and refine effective options for responding to emergency and crisis conditions for individuals and families.	Up
	Narrative
	The Center began a planned approach of expanding its response to emergencies in 1980 and has refined this process in incremental steps since. Today the Center has a 24 hour professional coverage and day time on call staff for response. The introduction of a consult clinic has added to the array of resource options. Yet mental health emergencies continue to represent an important need identified by the consumers and service providers.
	Action Items
	Expand use of consult clinic to three or more days a week. Expand the number of safe sites available for staff response. Publicize access to on call resources. Link Center services to other organizations emergency plans. Develop mobile crisis intervention options. Strengthen staff response to crisis. Strengthen other community providers understanding and response to crisis.

7.	Provide service options that optimize consumer access to services .	Up
	Narrative
	Center services have moved from a passive to an active service model over the past twenty years through the addition of satellite locations, community support, mobile counseling. A continued emphasis on how to refine and perfect service approaches that help engage the consumer into a successful use of services represents an important priority.
	Action Items
	Increase the use of satellite offices to expand service options and number of people served to expand consumer choice. Provide access to Center appointments by streamlining the initial assessment process to more easily accommodate consumers. Expand the number of appointment times available for consumers in their choice of times. Expand the Center’s role in studying, planning and coordinating consumer issues that serve as barriers such as transportation, childcare, employers. Coordinate services to optimize consumer schedules. Provide evening hours and consider their expansion over time. Explore scheduled weekend appointments . Expand role of mobile counseling.

8.	Provide a comprehensive and integrated set of services to those with serious and persistent mental health conditions.	Up
	Narrative
	The Center formally initiated policy implementing such a direction in 1983 recognizing services it had long provided. From that time, long range and annual plans have consistently identified and addressed this mission area as an area of fundamental importance. A separate long range strategic plan has been developed specifically for the community support program. Important priority areas include:
	Action Items
	Develop internal organizational resources that integrate staff to an understanding of the most current knowledge and resources and develop a specific strategic plan to address this population group and services. Refine and sustain an active array of mental health services including emphasis in providing services across departments: psychology, social work, nursing and psychiatry. Refine and expand an active community service response through the community support program that increases the coverage to consumers by increasing resources, times of service delivery. Develop planned constructive responses to the needs of those with serious and persistent mental illness that relate to their life in the community such as housing, employment, transportation including direct services as well as those described as indirect: consultation, education, advocacy, community planning. Increase consumer participation and involvement in their own services. Expand resources to families and community in better understanding serious mental illness and ways to assist in recovery.

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