$1.5M investment from UnitedHealthcare expands access for Iowa students
CEDAR RAPIDS — Students in the Cedar Rapids Community School District can receive free, virtual mental health counseling through a new one-year grant program.
The partnership, announced Wednesday, is a result of a $1.5 million investment from health benefits company UnitedHealthcare into providing the technological infrastructure needed for expanding access to mental health care for K-12 students across Iowa. The services will be provided by Hazel Health, which specializes in offering telehealth services for schools.
Students in the Cedar Rapids school district can access Hazel Health services by contacting their school counseling office, Superintendent Tawana Grover said. Hazel Health therapists will be available to create personalized, evidence-based, age-appropriate programs for each K-12 student they serve.
“You as our students can show up, receive these services and not have to pay one dime. That’s what it looks like to break down a barrier,” she said.
Des Moines and Council Bluffs school districts also are recipients of the UnitedHealthcare grant and will receive telehealth services through Hazel Health this year. Additional districts in urban and rural areas of the state will be added soon, Hazel Health spokeswoman Liz Austin said in an email to The Gazette.
The investment will impact approximately 100,000 students in Iowa in historically underserved and rural communities, which represents nearly 21 percent of all K-12 students in Iowa, UnitedHealthcare said.
Grover said the Cedar Rapids district will “evaluate and review” the services provided by Hazel Health and look for funding opportunities to possibly continue the program in the future as school officials continue to prioritize the mental well-being of students.
The partnership with Hazel Health is in addition to a $500,000 investment approved by the Cedar Rapids school board this year to support local mental health partnerships, Grover said. That funding is from at-risk categorical funding for schools.
The Cedar Rapids district unveiled the partnership with Hazel Health at a mental health panel at Washington High School. Participating on the panel with Grover were:
- University of Iowa basketball player Hannah Stuelke, an alumna of Washington High
- Larry Johnson, a psychotherapist at Washington High
- Dr. Brian Masterson, a senior behavioral health medical director of UnitedHealth Group
- And four high school student volunteers
The high school students on the panel shared how they struggle with comparing themselves with their peers and what’s portrayed on social media, and balancing school with extracurricular activities and their personal lives and how that affects their mental health.
Stuelke shared that she struggled to “open up” and talk with other people about her feelings. She said she recently began seeing a counselor.
“I started talking to someone. It felt so good to release that, get over so many fears and stigmas. You always think you’re going to be thought of as weak when you go and talk to someone, but I think that’s the strongest thing you can do,” Stuelke said.
Stuelke is a “prime example that’s appealing to our students and saying, ‘It’s OK to seek out help,’” Grover said. “That alone helps break down some barriers and remove stigma.”
Marcy Roundtree, a member of the Cedar Rapids school board who was present for the panel discussion Wednesday, was previously a community engagement advocate at Washington High. In that role, she saw students feeling unsafe to express that they needed help.
The partnership with Hazel Health is “so big and so important because a lot of kids suffer in silence,” she said.
