Des Moines / Iowa / United States
Affiliates Eyerly Ball Residential Eyerly Ball Residential was incorporated in 1978 as a non-profit organization and began providing residential services to adults with serious and persistent mental illness in 1979. The agency began as a joint project of Westminster Presbyterian Church and the Mental Health Association of Polk County to provide quality residential treatment for adults following a period of psychiatric hospitalization. Eyerly Ball Residential is non-sectarian but maintains informal ties with the church and the Presbytery. This service was part of a Polk County plan to improve services to citizens with mental illness. Prior to opening the Eyerly Ball Residential, living options following a period of psychiatric hospitalization were limited to institutional or substandard housing. In 1965, the U.S. Congress passed legislation to create a system of Community Mental Health Centers across the country. This groundbreaking legislation was the start of non-institutional, public mental health systems. Service system planning and development began with the agencys participation with the Mental Health Coordinating Commission in the mid 1960s, leading to the incorporation of the Polk County Mental Health Center Board, Inc, in 1966. In December of 1968 the Polk County Board of Supervisors contributed $48, 000 to the development of a freestanding community mental health center and in 1969 Eyerly Ball Community Mental Health Services (then known as the Polk County Mental Health Center) began providing outpatient treatment services. Golden Circle Behavioral Health is a limited liability company that Eyerly Ball has been involved with since it was incorporated. This company is currently comprised of two nonprofit behavioral health service corporations (Eyerly Ball CMHS and Goodwill Industries of Iowa). Since the fall of 1994, these agencies have been developing techniques using the tools of managed care to improve the quality, effectiveness and efficiency of services to individuals with serious and persistent mental illness. Golden Circle is responsible for the capitation project called Integrated Services Project, Targeted Case Management services and the Program for Assertive Community Treatment. The programs within Golden Circle were developed in response to Polk Countys Model for Managed Care and the Development of Lead Agencies in 1997. The Polk County vision was a "consumer driven individualized service system in which resources are used in a cost effective manner to assure maximum consumer dignity, independence and community integration."
