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Webster County to continue with CSS

County could become an access center for this part of the state

Webster County will continue on with County Social Services and will likely become an access center for this part of the state.

Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday morning to bat down a resolution that would have given the county the option to leave the 22-county mental health region.

The idea to potentially leave the region came about after what supervisors said was a lack of transparency and communication from CSS, whose goal is to make funding and service availability easier between county lines.

But after hours of discussion and debate from CSS workers, mental health providers, jail administrators, law enforcement, and neighboring supervisors, Webster County officials decided to stay the course.

One of Alison Hauser’s criticisms of the Board of Supervisors was that they had not done enough to see how CSS and mental health providers work together.

Hauser is the western quadrant administrator for CSS.

Supervisor Niki Conrad said she took those comments to heart.

“I scheduled a visit to CFR to take a look at what they are doing there and have reached out to other providers and citizens who have received services from CSS,” Conrad said. “I look forward to continuing these conversations with the goal of better understanding the full breadth and reach of the work done in our community.”

Conrad said after reviewing the video from the previous meeting and reflecting on available facts, she concluded that moving forward with CSS would be the best choice for the citizens of Webster County.

“I think the overwhelming point of agreement among all parties is that Webster County is the logical hub for an access center,” Conrad said. “A police chief said it, a neighboring supervisor said it, we have a letter from other supervisors saying it, CSS has said it, a supervisor here has said it.”

Conrad added, “Given we have all reaffirmed this commitment to returning Webster County’s substantial investment by putting this access center here in Fort Dodge, I see no logical reason why this should not proceed, without hindrance, immediately as planned.”

Supervisor Mark Campbell said in the future he expects to see a better representation of how people in Webster County are being helped by CSS.

“Two regions sent us their numbers that they do present every single month to their boards of clients served in their counties and what services they get,” Campbell said.

Campbell added, “DHS verified that those numbers are a public record. I hope we can move forward to answer your questions in the future and work on that because I think there are great opportunities here. We have great organizations come in and speak and share their successes. We need to be part of that. Sharing success. When we don’t have certain pieces of information, that’s hard to do. I hope moving forward we can figure out how to clear that up.”

With the resolution failing, Webster County’s arrangement with CSS will continue as normal through its 28E agreement.

In terms of the access center, Bob Lincoln, CEO of CSS, clarified that there are verbal agreements in place for an access center.

Those agreements still need to be signed.

CSS appears poised to expand on mental health service and infrastructure in the Fort Dodge area.

Lincoln said to this point, Community and Family Resources has been designated as the access center “to build out.”

Lincoln added, “We did that because we could not find any competing locations.”

Lincoln said, “CFR has a long history of serving as a detox.”

“We expanded that for mental health,” he said. “A psychiatric screening, a medical screening. We can keep them safe. We can build on that.”

Supervisor Nick Carlson ackowledged the turbulent relations between the board and CSS, but thought the time wasn’t right to part ways.

“I believe in unintended consequences, so if we left without something in place, that’s not going to help anybody,” Carlson said. “I think it’s been aired in public our relationship hasn’t been the best between our board and CSS. That’s not to place blame on anybody. I hope we can get past that and move forward.”

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