Project Title: Center of Excellence for Inclusion and Belonging in Behavioral Health (COEIBBH) Applicant Organization: The Regents of the University of California Address: 120 Haviland Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-7400 Project Director Name: Adrian Aguilera, Ph.D. Contact Phone Numbers: 510-643-6669 Email address: aguila@berkeley.edu Notice of Funding Opportunity number: HRSA22-042, AL/CFDA No. 93.157 COE Category: “Other” COE Program Funding Requested: Year One: $685,842.00; Year Two: $685,842.00; Year Three: $685,842.00; Year Four: $685,842.00; and Year Five: $685,842.00 Total Request: $3,429,210.00 The Center of Excellence for Inclusion and Belonging in Behavioral Health at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), School of Social Welfare will strengthen the diversity of the behavioral health workforce to improve the quality and delivery of care to vulnerable and medically underserved communities in the San Francisco Bay Area region. Our Center will recruit and train under-represented minority (URM) students viz., Black/African American, Latinx and Native American/Alaskan Indian students and faculty in the “Other” COE category. Four broad goals will guide our efforts: (1) Strengthen UC Berkeley’s efforts and its existing Center of Excellence to recruit, train and retain underrepresented minority students and faculty to reflect the changing demographics of its student body and the region at large and to increase the number of URM MSW and PhD graduates; (2) improve and expand clinical skills, knowledge and cultural competence of behavioral health students and professionals; (3) facilitate faculty and student research on behavioral health issues affecting Latinx, Black/African American, and Native American/Alaskan Indian groups; and (4) improve regional capacity to deliver quality behavioral health services to Hispanic/Latinx, Black/African American, Native American/American Indian, and potentially Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander communities
. Berkeley Social Welfare will work with partner agencies to build an education pipeline for behavioral health careers. Our programs will (1) train URM students and practitioners in providing behavioral health services to diverse communities, (2) facilitate faculty and doctoral student research on health and behavioral health disparities among URM groups, (3) improve URM student performance and graduation rates, (4) improve the capacity of the School to recruit, train and retain URM faculty, (5) develop activities to improve the School’s information resources, clinical education, curricula and cultural competence to better address minority behavioral health issues, and (6) provide stipends to URM graduate students and financial incentives to local community agencies to mentor and train URM students. Berkeley Social Welfare is one of four major universities in California (and the only Northern California school) that produces social workers at the baccalaureate, masters and doctoral levels in a program accredited by the Council of Social Work Education (CSWE). UC Berkeley is considered one of the top public universities in the United States and its Social Welfare program is ranked #3.