URBANDALE -- Members of a task force charged with reviewing Iowa’s four state-run mental health institutes say those facilities need to do a better job of reaching out and sharing their expertise with local communities.

That was a recurring theme in a meeting Monday, where a task force appointed by Gov. Chet Culver worked on its in-depth review of the institutions.

A proposal to close one of the four facilities is due by Dec. 15 from the Iowa Department of Human Services. That proposal is expected to address or incorporate the findings of the task force.

Dr. Dan Gillette, superintendent of the Cherokee Mental Health Institute, said sharing expertise is a good idea but that "more of that happens than the task force is aware of already."

For instance, he said, members of the institute's professional staff "moonlight" for other human-services facilities that lease space on the Cherokee campus, and they frequently work in public clinics, subject to state approval.

The institute provides services for adults in 41 of Iowa's 99 Iowa counties -- including the metro areas of Sioux City, Council Bluffs and Des Moines -- and 60 counties send children and adolescent psychiatric patients to the facility.

"The fact Iowa is underserved by the critical professionals in mental health makes it hard," Gillette said.

Ultimately, it would take an act of the Iowa Legislature to shut down one of the four institutes.

Task force member Maggie Tinsman said it is difficult to think about closing one of the facilities because of the unique specialties each of them offers.

“I don’t expect this group to come back with any direction of closing a particular institute,” said Tinsman, a former state senator.

What she does expect is that the task force will point out ways the institutes can provide more outreach to local communities beyond where they are located. All four of the state institutions --- in Clarinda, Mount Pleasant and Independence as well as Cherokee -- are outside urban centers.

“They can do training to mental health workers all over the state, and maybe we don’t need to institutionalize people so much,” Tinsman said.

Tinsman believes more community resources need to be developed to deal with mental health issues and that money should be shifted to that effort.

“You need support groups; you need counselors. You need people coming into the community and helping people,” said Tinsman, whose consulting firm specializes in health and human services issues.

She cited a need for the state’s mental health institutes to work more closely with the state’s correctional system when such a high percentage of that population has serious mental illness.

Task force chairman Ro Foege of Mount Vernon predicts task force members, many of whom are mental health advocates, will not recommend the closure of one of the institutions.

He pointed to the specialties of care that have developed at each center.

In Clarinda that specialty is geriatric psychiatric care, and in Mount Pleasant it is treating those with both substance abuse and mental health issues known as “dual diagnosis” cases.

A sex offender treatment unit is on the Cherokee institute’s campus; the institution in Independence places a special focus on children and adolescents.

The task force is scheduled to meet again Dec. 8 in Urbandale, when Foege hopes they will finalize their report.

Charlotte Eby can be reached at 515-422-9061 or chareby@aol.com.

Journal staff writer Michele Linck contributed to this report.