Judge Robert Rice grew up in Nodaway County, and said that after many years working as a lawyer, prosecutor and now, a judge — he’s seen the need for more mental health resources in Northwest Missouri.
So, a few years ago he brought together leaders from Gentry, Holt, Nodaway and Worth counties to create the Northwest Missouri Cooperative Mental Health Board, a group which aims to improve access to mental health care throughout the region.
For the month of October, we’re focusing on the stories of those living in Maryville and Nodaway County.
Judge Robert Rice: What I saw pretty early on was just the parallels between mental health crisis and folks who are in the system some way, somehow — whether it's civil or criminal.
When you really dig in deep into the weeds and see the roots of the problem, what you see is someone who has an undiagnosed or untreated mental health crisis or mental health trauma that they're that they've just tried to just self-medicate to get through and get by, and someone who is just looking to survive can't dream.
So, when you see over the course of 23 years just how much mental health plays a role in the court system, it really inspired me to want to take that ball and expand it to see how can we help everybody, whether they're in a court system case or not, how can we help the community with more mental health resources?
Because up here in Northwest Missouri — there's not as many resources as we need. We have a very big gap of mental health resources, especially for children. How do we get them the care they need that just can't wait for a doctor's appointment a month down the road or longer?
And so, just trying to find some other passionate people who have that yearning to see how we can help obtain more resources here in Northwest Missouri, has been a lot of fun. I've met a lot of fantastic people.
The longer I've been trying to find these resources, the more I realize how much I don't know, and so, it's been really cool to meet so many people, but also tackle this this big question problem about the lack of resources that we have for mental health services in rural Missouri.
So, a lot of the work that the mental health board has also done is create a list of local resources, and also, that list is accessible through the local health department.
But there's also a fantastic online website that is curated, that is updated, that talks about local resources. We've got these cards that we like to hand out to folks, and it's the AIM Community Network.
We'll hand these out. It's got a little barcode on it and there's a poster, and this website here has resources that folks can hit on.
It's not just mental health services, but it's food, transportation, healthcare — this Aim Community Network is phenomenal.
And you can punch in your zip code, and it'll tell you the nearest resource in that area. Now, sometimes it may be a little bit of a drive, but frankly, it'll at least let you know where the closest one is.
