Graduate Psychology Education Programs - South Dakota (SD) is grossly underprepared and under-resourced for the current mental health crisis, given the needs of residents in a rural and frontier state. Specifically, there are not enough doctoral-level psychologists to meet the growing needs for mental health and substance use treatment. Recent data suggests SD has the lowest number of licensed psychologists of any state in the U.S., and the psychologists who are practicing are stretched thin to meet the high demand, with little time for professional development. Thus, there is a need to increase the number of psychologists and to improve the competence of those providing services to rural, underserved, and Native American populations in the state. The University of South Dakota Graduate Psychology Education (USD-GPE) Program proposes to annually support 5 predoctoral clinical psychology trainees by expanding and enhancing experiential didactic and training activities tailored to meet the needs of rural, underserved, and Native American populations. This proposal includes training opportunities for faculty, site directors, and clinical supervisors. This project also proposes partnering with state professional organizations and university affiliates to develop high impact initiatives to recruit students at all levels (high school, undergraduate, and graduate students) into health service psychology. Therefore, the goal of this project is to increase the number of well-trained, culturally competent health service psychology students who are both prepared to address the needs of the communities they serve and committed to working in high need and high demand areas after graduation. As such, four objectives are offered: Objective 1: Recruit, train, and prepare predoctoral psychology trainees for the community-based primary care settings they will serve in by expanding and enhancing academic and clinical partnerships and experiential training activities to better serve the needs of underserved, rural, and Native American populations in South Dakota (SD); Objective 2: Provide predoctoral trainees didactic curricula and clinical training experiences in the areas of trauma-informed care, prevention and treatment of substance use disorders (SUD)/opioid use disorder (OUD), tele-behavioral health services, behavioral health disorders in children and adolescents, social determinants of health, and interdisciplinary care working in high need and high demand areas of SD; Objective 3: Provide ongoing professional development, training opportunities, and support for faculty, staff, and state psychologists to improve knowledge and practice areas that support the trainees didactic and clinical experiences and provider resilience and well-being; Objective 4: Further develop collaborative pathways to increase the number of USD-GPE trainees, USD-Clinical Psychology Program (CPP) trainees, undergraduate and high school students interested in pursuing mental health career paths to better serve rural, underserved, and Native American populations in SD. Funding Priority Requested: Funding Preference of High Rate
