Representative Renee Schulte presented Voice of Children Award
The Voice of Children award is a recognition given each year by the Orchard Place Board of Directors. It honors an individual whose public service has best enabled Orchard Place, its staff, volunteers, parents, care givers and financial supporters to serve the children who come through its doors for help.
Today’s honoree joins a distinguished group of previous honorees that includes State Representatives Dave Heaton of Mt. Pleasant, Lisa Heddens of Ames, Mark Smith of Marshalltown, Bruce Hunter of Des Moines, and Scott Raecker of Urbandale as well as State Senators Jack Hatch of Des Moines, and Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs. Mari Culver, the former First Lady was also honored.
State Representative Renee Schulte is from Cedar Rapids and was first elected to the Iowa House of Representatives just three years ago. In that brief time she has been elected as Assistant Majority Leader by her Republican colleagues and assumed a major role in children’s health issues. Most notably she has joined with Senator Hatch in a bipartisan effort to redesign Iowa’s adult and children’s mental health, substance abuse, brain injury and intellectual disabilities treatment systems.
Her dedication to that reform comes as no surprise. Serving children has been Renee’s life work since receiving her BA and Masters degrees with high honors in the field of psychology from New Mexico State University. From New Mexico to Texas and then Iowa ten years ago Representative Schulte’s professional career has seen her working in virtually all treatment areas involving children. Today she is a strategic planning advisor to Four Oaks in Cedar Rapids, a mental health facility with which Orchard Place has often worked especially in its capacity as a PMIC.
For that work alone our honoree today would deserve this Voice of Children award. However, it is especially for her work within the Iowa legislature that Orchard Place wishes to extend its hand of thanks. Her professional expertise in mental health and substance abuse counseling makes her an important voice in committees, on the floor of the House, and across the rotunda in the Senate.
I have already mentioned her continuing work on mental health system reform. Specifically she has enhanced Orchard Place’s services in major ways. Just to mention a few, she has given her active support to funding the Child Guidance Center’s System of Care pilot program, our PMIC’s approaching transition into managed care, and innovative approaches to helping children with the most challenging illnesses. As part of that commitment to service she visited this campus for nearly two hours last week to see first-hand how Orchard Place works with kids. Just as she is a leader in her community and in the Iowa legislature, she is also a professional leader in helping you here today do the work we all love.
I am therefore pleased, on behalf of the Board of Directors and all who serve children here, to present the 2011 Voice of Children Award to our friend, the Honorable Renee Schulte.