Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training Program - Children, adolescents, and transitional-age youth with neurodevelopmental disorders and other forms of neurodiversity are at an increased risk for a range of adverse health and social outcomes including depression, PTSD, suicide, victimization, substance use/misuse, and other poor health outcomes. Half of youth who present for outpatient mental health services are neurodiverse with 92% presenting with co-occuring mental health disorders. Missouri is below national averages for the availability of behavioral health (BH) professions trained to serve youth broadly and neurodiverse youth specifically. To address workforce shortages to meet the specific needs of youth, Saint Louis University (SLU) submits the following application to the HRSA BWHET. Funding will be used to increase the overall capacity of the BH workforce serving youth with a high-probability of being neurodiverse including those who have, or are at risk of developing, a BH disorder in the St. Louis Metro Area and surrounding rural areas. To achieve this overall program goal, this interdisciplinary project brings together the academic units of Clinical Psychology, Medical Family Therapy, and Social Work to develop and implement the Neurodiversity Behavioral Health Access Fellowship (NDBHAF). The NDBHAF aims to train a diverse BH workforce in integrated and primary care, interdisciplinary practice, telemedicine and neurodiversity affirming practices and advocacy. The NDBHAF has four objectives: (1) increase critical knowledge of integrated and primary care, interdisciplinary practice, telemedicine as well as neurodevelopmental disorders and associated BH problems experienced by youth across diverse families and communities; (2) provide trainees with high-quality practice opportunities to utilize knowledge for effective, evidence-based, affirming practices with neurodiverse youth from underserved communities prioritizing integrated/primary care and interdisciplinary settings; (3) recruit a diverse BH workforce committed to working with vulnerable youth including neurodiverse youth; and (4) evaluate the impact of the NDBHAF activities on program outcomes. A mixed methods design will assess performance and evaluate program impact on the BH workforce. Throughout the grant, we expect to recruit and train 64 BH professionals who will be committed to serving underserved, vulnerable youth. Additionally, the program will result in long-term sustainable deliverables including: (1) the creation of a Interdisciplinary Neurodiversity Clinic at SLU; and (2) the creation of the Online Center of Excellence in Education and Supervision providing supervisors in metropolitan area and rural communities training in supervision best practices and continuing education. We are ideally suited to achieve our objectives due to the existing infrastructure for clinical services, including telehealth through the Center for Counseling and Family Therapy and given that the NDBHAF faculty are prepared to modify existing coursework and field experiences and implement the development of the clinical skills and competencies needed to practice from an interprofessional perspective. We are requesting the funding preference using Qualification 1 and funding priority 1 in demonstrating the ability of our programs to train psychology, and social work professionals to work in integrated care settings.
