I am proud a mom of six, and Licensed Independent Social Worker in the State of Iowa. I have a private practice that works with families effected by Child Protective Services, as well as Family and Criminal Court issues. I am a trained evaluator and provide court involved services and expert testimony for family and child welfare involved cases. I worked to create a training opportunity to expand access to infant and early childhood mental health services for families, regularly confront the dysfunction of our state systems, while collaborating with some of the most dedicated and committed case workers in our child welfare system.

My training as a Clinical (individual) and Macro (systems) Social Worker with almost 30 years in the field have prepared me for difficult battles and given me hands on, first row experience of our state and legislative processes and how they work, don’t work, and impact Iowan’s.

I also hold professional licenses in multiple other states and have worked first hand with how State’s have more control and influence than they take credit for. We can make change now in Iowa, we don’t need to wait for the rest of the country to catch up.

My training as a therapist and neutral evaluator for our family courts lends me the skills to understand the importance of listening and looking at all sides of an issue. I know how to be objective, do proper research, and I also understand how to identify our strengths as well as our needs.

You can have passion for a position, but if you can’t work together to create solutions it doesn’t matter how strongly you feel. Knowing how to target what the root cause is, and not just react to the latest rage bait is a skill. Democrats spent too much time reacting in the past and this needs to change. We have to be able to work together with people who don’t agree with us and how to make a plan that works. Part of what my education and experience has supplied me, is training specific in our government systems and how to assess the efficacy of them, evaluate for outcomes, and make a measurable plan to implement change.

As a mother of six, and a professional who works with the Family and Juvenile Court systems, I see the struggles of our families in Iowa. I also get to celebrate the wins. Maintaining access to affordable childcare, paid parental leave, and supporting those involved with our family welfare system are priorities.

As a professional social worker in the state, I actively worked to create opportunity for the families I work with in our child welfare system. I expanded access to trained professionals in a highly needed intervention for our Safe Babies Court by organizing a fully paid training opportunity with cooperation for funding from the Department of Health and Human Services and Iowa’s Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health Organization. This effort will triple Iowa’s access to specialized interventions for children and families under the age of six who are at risk of having their rights terminated.

But our child welfare system has their shortcomings. Including a lack of proper training and support for the case workers managing services for families. And ongoing cuts to agencies that support these families. I cannot tell you how many times as a mandatory reporter I turned over clear and explicit abuse, often psychological abuse, only for the case to be unfounded, and a family court to later identify the severe issues and oversight.

We aren’t giving all families in our system the proper supports, and we are failing to protect our children. That is evident in our State’s failure to implement the Child Abuse Task Force.

Our Child Protection Workers and agencies need better support, while holding those not doing their job in the system accountable.

I come from a long line of military involved family, including my late father who fought in the early phase of Vietnam and was a Paratrooper. He passed from Agent Orange related complications in 1996. Before Senator Eugene McCarthy ran for Presidential office, my father was the personal liaison when he toured Vietnam as a US Senator. This experience was so impactful, it forever changed his political views from this close personal experience and is one of the reasons why it’s important to listen to our Veterans. My father was heavily affected by his service, and it wasn’t until after his death that his health issues were finally acknowledged by the VA. I was able to complete my undergraduate program only because of the financial assistance I received from my father’s time in the military and his active duty service.

My oldest daughter is a veteran, and my son-in-law is actively serving in the Iowa National Guard while focusing on training to be a pilot. They have one beautiful daughter and another on the way.

My husband is a disabled veteran, while working for one of Iowa’s largest Community Colleges as Chair of his Department for his skilled trades program.

My husband isn’t a PhD scholar, but he has decades of experience in his field with an Associates Degree from Des Moines Area Community College that he obtained later in life. He works directly with Iowa’s manufacturing industry as chair of his department at DMACC, including the rapidly changing needs of companies to hire qualified employees and retain them. Our manufacturing industries are struggling and losing qualified employees to opportunities outside of Iowa. It’s a high demand industry that pays well, but now is going to be even more negatively impacted by Iowa’s recent DOGE recommendations. Our skilled trades education programs, apprenticeships, and training opportunities need more funding, focus, and support to keep qualified workers in Iowa and to support Iowa’s manufacturing industry. Working in Iowa’s manufacturing is more than being an engineer. While engineering is important, we need skilled and qualified people to work in the factories and with emerging robotic technology and Artificial Intelligence that engineers don’t manage. It’s about transforming jobs to keep Iowan’s employed in our skilled trades industry while progressing with advancing systems. It’s shifting skills not replacing them.

I have worked in healthcare in emergency rooms, intensive care units when people are at their most vulnerable, mental health units, for corporate medicine, including for two of the largest insurance companies in Iowa. I was part of the Medicaid Managed Care transition from 2015-2019 in Iowa and worked with State officials as a part of this contract with the Managed Care Company I was employed by. I traveled around the State to present, support, and assist providers of all sizes from individuals to large hospital systems on working with the new system. I also conducted ACTUAL Fraud, Waste, and Abuse investigations, unlike our our DOGE. In doing this, I have significant insights to how things really work, and not just what they want you to know.

Iowan’s have more influence over their healthcare and insurance benefits locally than they realize. Very few legislators in our House and Senate truly understand how our insurance industry works from the inside, and how it impacts the healthcare Iowan’s receive in the community and facilities.

Gender affirming care is more than LGBTQIA+, It’s access to proper perimenopause and menopause focused medical care, and hormonal care for men. It’s access to fertility services and supporting Iowa’s families. Abortion isn’t immoral, it’s healthcare. And the far right nationalist rhetoric is rooted in fear mongering and misinformation. The majority of Iowan’s support some form of access to abortion care, but instead we made it more impossible for Iowan’s to access it. Iowa has been unable to retain and attract qualified healthcare professionals with women’s health issues, yet they want young families to stay in our state and start families? Our hands are tied with some of the most restrictive and medically harmful abortion laws in the country. With two major medical schools in our state, we shouldn’t be here.

We also struggle to retain qualified and trained providers in our state. Just ask the many people who have had to travel out of State just to get access for proper epilepsy care…

My husband is an instructor and the Program Chair for his skilled trades department in Robotics and Control Systems, Electronics, Engineering and Technology, and Industrial Technology with DMACC. I also have taught as an adjunct professor with high school students in DMACC’s High School Career education program. We both have witnessed and continue to see the needs of students unprepared to enter post-secondary education, while witnessing other students advancing with 30 credits complete before they leave high school. I am well attuned to the gaps in all our education systems.

We need better funding and support for our teachers and public schools. We also need to allow teachers to teach, and take back influence over their classrooms while properly supporting them and our students. We have gone too far with politicizing the day to day activities of our educators. It has distracted from our main focus…teaching our children. We need to support funding for our AEA’s again and allow them to support students needs properly. Rigor in our lesson plans doesn’t need to be compromised by being trauma informed. Two things can exist at once. As someone who has experienced first hand an active shooter situation outside my classroom while having to shelter in place; I know what it’s like to have to keep the focus on learning for the semester while allowing students the space to find safety. We shouldn’t need to do this. Especially when our state legislators were more worried about arming school staff than asking those who have been impacted by violence in school, and the students, what was needed. Our public schools can be funded in addition to supporting a highly modified and controlled school voucher program. And they can be safe.

The school voucher program was brought in to only support one agenda. But the reality is, many families who vote blue also voted to benefit from this program. This isn’t as clear of an issue as we have been sold. We need reform with our voucher program starting with audits and a review of it’s funding. It’s here and it’s not going away now that it’s been embedded in our system. We have to take a look at the way these schools are using and accessing vouchers, and the families impacted. Place income limits, a sliding fee, and expectations in order for private institutions to access the voucher program to address issues of disparity. While many families benefit from vouchers who already had plenty of means to pay tuition, there are a number of families that attend private schools on scholarships and alternative funding options in many of our private schools. While some private institutions flourish and have state of the art facilities. Many private schools struggle to keep operations open and serve some of our lowest income, immigrant, and ESL (English as a second language) families. While the wealthy may be unfairly and disproportionately benefiting, vouchers also support lower-income, refugee, and immigrant families as well. Democrats silently voted for these vouchers, and that is a tough pill to swallow. We can’t just turn back the clock like MAGA has campaigned for. We need to be real about their existence, and create accountability and understand where the money is going. While school vouchers have historically and traditionally been used to marginalize and segregate communities, we can change this as part of their role in Iowa. We don’t have to be like everyone else.

Home school options need better monitoring to prevent abuse of our home school program for families to hide. I love we have the option for home school. I have worked with many families who access the five different options for homeschooling. I also know from my experience that it is a cover up for those who want to do harm. As a mandatory reporter and therapist who works with court mandated families, I have seen first hand and made abuse reports due to our private home school options exploited by abusive family members. Sabrina Ray and Natalie Finn are evidence of this. Iowa currently has two options with no reporting or accountability with it’s home school options. This allows children to fall behind, to lose contact with safe adults trained as mandatory reporters, and allows families to hide abuse.

Iowa’s environmental issues run deep. With no emission standards, the removal of monitoring for nitrates in our water, and the fastest growing cancer rate in the country that has historically been linked to use of chemicals in ag, we cannot ignore this issue any longer. On top of that, the introduction of Artificial Intelligence housing in our Data Centers will strain our energy and water resources creating a bigger issue for clean water and air and access to affordable energy. Iowa’s energy infrastructure is not built to manage the significant pull and demands of the rapidly expanding AI processing center needs. With well over 100 data centers, by several different companies that continue to build more in Iowa, this is a reality that Iowan’s need to understand and house accountability standards and reporting from these companies. Data Centers require a enormous amount of energy to run, but nothing compared to the process that an AI Processing facility requires. With Iowa being a popular place for Data Centers due to our climate and land availability, and tax breaks, this will only continue to grow. The by-products from these proposed AI processing centers have the potential to create a major issue in our environment and in our energy.

Iowa is currently facing water safety issues and high levels of nitrates in our water systems. In 2025 with all our technology and advancements it is hard to fathom we are actually addressing water quality still. Iowa removed monitoring systems to prevent this issue and its impacting not just our environment but potentially our health. Working together with our agricultural systems is crucial to support Iowa’s farming industry while preserving access to safe and drinkable water.

With over two-thirds of the US allowing legal recreational use of THC products and the emergence of psilocybin as a treatment for mental disorders, legalization for proper regulation, taxation, and use of funds for many of Iowa’s residents needs is essential. With four of our surrounding states have more expansive and liberal access to THC products, it’s next to impossible to keep it properly contained in Iowa. Properly regulating and legalizing THC will allow for appropriate monitoring of use, classification differences for pharmaceutical use versus recreational use, and allows for taxation to help support the needs of Iowans. It’s already here, and people are regularly and actively using it. It’s time to get with the program, including proper education on its use and effects to keep people safe.

It’s no secret that Iowa is an agriculture state. And our farmers are struggling with the recent shifts in our federal relief programs, as well as the impact our national politics have played in our local industry. Agriculture has also taken the blame for our environmental issues with water quality and our rising cancer rates. But why Iowa? We have a lot of research to do and data to collect. But we can’t punish or take this out on our agricultural industry. We have to find a way to support our local farmers, including our smaller farming operations while also addressing the needs of Iowans.

While Iowan’s were distracted in 2024 with scare tactics about Drag Queens, and being told that public schools are grooming your children to be LGBTQIA+, “identity politics” became a battleground for conspiracy theories and morality scare tactics.

One of my own children left Iowa after the election because of Iowa’s legislative agenda with LGBTQIA+ and being transgender. We need to support health care alternatives as well as address the harmful changes to our State Constitution regarding protections against discrimination. Teaching appreciation for our differences is not indoctrination.

Supporting and properly funding healthcare necessary for adults to access the care they privately seek and supportive care for children in families with LGBTQIA+ needs is essential.