CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – A mother is pushing the state of Iowa for more mental health care resources and long term care beds.
Iowa has the fewest psychiatric beds relative to its population in the country.
Jody Puffett and her husband adopted three siblings in 2012, and she says all three siblings were severely abused and dealing with mental illness.
“One of the kiddos is our 16-year-old son… who is now 5′10 and 260 pounds… He has suffered his entire life with severe behavioral and violence and aggression issues,” Puffett said.
Puffett said her son has had several hospital stays and run ins with police – along with a number of diagnosis for mental illness.
During a recent violent episode he threatened Puffett’s life.
“He hit me. He actually pulled a knife on me and held it to my neck and to my wrist,” Puffett said.
She called 911, and her son went to an in-patient mental health unit for two days.
While there, he had a violent episode and was discharged back home despite Puffett pushing for him to get longer term care.
“Basically I was told ‘here’s a list of the PMIC units that you can contact yourself and apply for’, most of them have waiting list but there’s nothing we can do. So they either could not or would not give me a referral,” Puffett said.
After she took her son home, he had another violent episode, breaking things around the house and threatening Puffett again.
“He busted a TV, he busted my laptop, this time he took a hammer that was on the kitchen table and threatened me with it,” Puffett said.
After this episode, her son went to St. Luke’s Emergency Department.
St. Luke’s psych unit wouldn’t take him because of his violence during his last visit and she says Iowa Department of Human Services had nowhere to place her son. With nowhere to send him, he was set to be discharged home.
“I told her I did not feel safe bringing him home. Ultimately something serious was gonna happen, even get killed, even though he wouldn’t intend to that’s just how violent he gets in these rages. And I told her I was refusing to come get him,” Puffett said.
She was at a crossroads. She couldn’t bring her son home and risk more violence, and she felt like the medical system failed her.
So she went the judicial route, and pushed for criminal charges to get him a safe place to sleep.
It worked. A social worker placed him in the North Iowa Juvenile Detention Center in Black Hawk County.
“Everybody in their own world was doing the best they could. But trying to help coordinate and talk to the social worker, talk to the hospital, and it’s just mentally and physically exhausting and you feel like you’re just getting nowhere,” Puffett said.
According to Treatment Advocacy Center, a national nonprofit supporting solutions for people with serious mental illness, Iowa has the fewest psychiatric beds given its population in the country.
TV9 spoke with a national expert on children’s mental health policy, who advocates for wrap around care to help families like the Puffetts.
“Consider the idea of creating a locally based system of care, which really is about a network of providers, of people that care about a particular child. It could be teachers, coaches, police officers, neighbors, you name it,” said Gary Blau
He said community-based care that includes Multisystemic Therapy can prevent the frequency of the most extreme symptoms, including violence. He said it keeps children with serious mental illness close to their families, and safe.
“Bringing that small group together to create a treatment plan, a crisis plan, a recreational plan, and a therapeutic array of activities is very cost efficient… and it works,” Blau said.
Blau said more psychiatric care units should be a priority, but seen as a last resort after wrap around care.
Puffett said she’s still pushing for Iowa to establish a long-term treatment facility specifically for children with mental illness and behavioral problems.
“All the services that are supposed to be there, they won’t provide them,” Puffett said.
And that’s why she’s planning to see her son next month – during his court appearance. On a charge that his mother never wanted to pursue, but feels that in Iowa… it was her only option.
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