IOWA CITY, IOWA

JOAN BLUNDALL (1945- )

PAPERS, 1986-1998

3 linear inches

ACQUISITION:	The papers» (donor no. 825) were donated by Joan Blundall in 2001.
ACCESS:		The »papers are open for research.
COPYRIGHT:		»Copyright held by the donor has been transferred to The University of Iowa.
AUDIOVISUAL:		Two videocassettes shelved in videocassette collection: V229 and V230
PROCESSED BY:		Heather Stecklein, 2002Your name, year [filename]». [BlundallJoan.doc]

»Biography

Joan Whitwer Blundall was born in 1945 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She attended Temple University and graduated in 1966. She married the same year and moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where she worked at a social welfare agency and entered the University of Rhode Island master’s degree program in child development/family relations. Her son Jonathan was born in 1970, and she completed her degree in 1976. In the late 1970s, Blundall divorced her husband and moved to Fort Dodge, Iowa to work for the Iowa State University Extension Service. In 1984 as the farm crisis emerged, Blundall began work at the Northwest Iowa Mental Health Center (later renamed Seasons Center). She designed an outreach program that provided farmers in dire straits with twenty-eight professionals to contact. Furthermore, she trained nearly 400 community volunteers to visit the homes of distressed families and developed a number of support groups where farm families could meet to discuss their worries. Once the farm crisis stabilized, Blundall re-immersed herself in education. She completed her master’s degree in Health Care Administration at the University of Osteopathic Medicine in Des Moines in 1999. In the late 1990s, she served on committees including the Iowa Department of Health’s Rural Health and Primary Care Advisory Committee and the Iowa Department of Justice’s Consumer Advocate Panel.Begin text here:»

Related Collections

“Voices from the land” oral history project

Scope and Content Note

Begin text here:The Joan Blundall papers date from 1986 to 1998 »and measure three» linear inches. They consist primarily of newspaper and journal articals concerning the farm crisis in Iowa in the 1980s and Blundall’s work with emotionally and economically distressed farmers. The »papers include articles about Blundall’s work, articles published by Blundall in journals and newspapers, and professional papers Blundall presented at conferences for professional organizations such as The National Institute of Social Work and Human Services in Rural Areas and the National Association of Social Workers. Two videotapes from NBC and CBS news programs in the mid-1980s depict Blundall working with farmers who were suffering severe emotional trauma as they faced the loss of their farms and other economic crises.

Box no. Description

Box 1

Biographical information

“Families who need someone to care,” by Claudia Dreifus, Redbook, December 1988

“Joan Blundall: A woman for all seasons,” The Dickinson County News, June 3, 2000

Articles

“The initial response from a community mental health care center,” Human Services in the Rural Environment, 1986

“Keeping peace on the farm: stresses of two-generation families,” Journal of Extension, summer 1986 (co-authored with Daniel J. Weigel and Randy R. Weigel)

“Farm families and marital disruption during a time of crisis,” Families in Rural America: Stress, adaptation, and revitalization, March 1988 (co-authored with Rosalie Huisinga Norem)

“Lives of courage, legacies of love,” Earth Matters, Spring 1989

“Farm families’ preferences toward the personal social services,” Social Work, November 1989 (co-authored with Emilia E. Martinez-Brawley)

“When the crisis is chronic,” Farm aid update, Winter 1990-1991

“In celebration of those bearing gifts,” Seasons, Winter 1992

“Mental health response to the current rural economic crisis,” Party-line, Winter 1999

Newspaper articles about Blundall, 1989 and undated (typescripts)

Newspaper clippings about Blundall, 1989-1992

Professional papers

The challenges facing working families and rural communities, presented at the National Rural Conference, Ames IA, April 25,1995

Help, helpers, and helping: farm families’ preferences toward the personal social services, presented at National Association of Social Workers 1988 National Conference (co-author Emilia E. Martinez-Brawley)

Confronting post-traumatic stress issues among emergency service providers in rural areas, presented at 15^th National Institute of Social Work and Human Services in Rural Areas (co-author Cindy Chicoine)

Rural communities dealing with changing times, conference materials, 1988

The rural economic crisis and mental health: then and now, December 16, 1998

Whom shall we help? Farm families and attitudes about need, first draft (co-author Emilia E. Martinez-Brawley)

The farm debtor as client: The human side of family crisis, undated

Support groups and the rural crisis, undated

Peer listening program: empowering community members as helpers, undated

Children growing up in changing times: The role of school in community, undated

Community and family: responding to immediate needs, undated

Select committee on children, youth and family, undated

Critical factors in mental health in Iowa, undated