Dr. Jensen to receive Community Service Award

Life may lead people down unexpected roads but their own personal experiences can influence the final outcome.

Before becoming one of Nebraska’s most vocal advocates for persons with mental illness, Linda Jensen was a registered nurse teaching nursing at then-Kearney State College while studying for her Ph.D.

All of that changed in 1991 when Dr. Jensen personally experienced the devastating effects of mental illness in a relative.

“It was then that I began to realize just how devastating mental illness is, the pervasive stigma surrounding it and the extreme lack of rehabilitative recovery-oriented resources in Nebraska at that time,” Dr. Jensen said. “I took on improvement of care, resources and fighting stigma as my way to find meaning in all my frustration and sorrow.”

Linda Jensen, Ph.D. Assistant professor, UNMC College of Nursing Kearney Division. Diploma in nursing from Lincoln General School of Nursing in 1966 and a bachelor’s degree in psychology in 1997 from Kearney State College. Master’s degree in nursing administration and maternal-child care and doctoral degree in 1997 from UNMC. Appointed to the state’s Behavioral Health Reform Commission in 2005.

Today Dr. Jensen continues to fight for the rights of persons with mental illnesses through her leadership on the Behavioral Health Oversight Commission of the Nebraska State Legislature, South Central Behavioral Health Advisory Council, Buffalo County Partners Mental Health Goals & Suicide Prevention Task Force, the NAMI Nebraska Board of Directors, Region III Mental Health Advisory Council, and the Nebraska Nurses Association Advocacy and Representation Commission.

To recognize her dedication to serving others, Dr. Jensen will receive the UNMC Spirit of Community Service Award during the chancellor’s annual faculty meeting April 25.

In nominating her for the award, colleagues Jeanne Bentz and Pat Trausch wrote: “Dr. Jensen works tirelessly to secure the rights of persons with mental illnesses, to develop parity and insurance benefits, and to educate nurses and the public about mental health and mental illness.”

Looking back on Dr. Jensen’s career there are clues to what helped shape her into the powerful advocate she is today — the time she spent working as a unit nurse manager in a large state hospital, her bachelor’s degree in psychology and her doctoral research on postpartum depression.

Dr. Jensen encourages others to advocacy also.

“I feel good about being able to educate more people about mental illness,” Dr. Jensen said. “This helps to create more discussion regarding mental illness which in turn helps to dispel some of the stigma that surrounds it.”

Dr. Jensen said people who suffer from a mental illness often feel ashamed and isolated.
They don’t understand that it is caused by a chemical imbalance, she said, and neither do loved ones struggling to help.

In 1997 Dr. Jensen began teaching the “Family-to-Family” course, which is aimed at helping persons with mental illness and their families come to some acceptance and understanding of the disease.

She also helps to facilitate a support group in Kearney for persons with mental illness that meets weekly.

“It is really a devastating thing to find out that you have a mental illness or that someone in your family has a serious mental illness,” Dr. Jensen said.