Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training Program - The purpose of this project is to increase the number of highly qualified counselors to serve children, adolescents, and young adults in southwest Virginia. Our campuses are located in Roanoke City and Montgomery County, and we serve contiguous, primarily rural localities including Franklin County, Bedford County, Botetourt County, Floyd County, Pulaski County, Roanoke County, Giles County, Salem City, and Craig County, which are all mental health provider shortage areas with HPSA scores 16 – 22. Recruitment is a widespread challenge for mental health professions, particularly for students from underserved areas and who hold underrepresented identities. We recruit small but diverse cohorts, primarily from underserved areas across Virginia. For example, 30% of graduates have had environmentally, economically, or educationally disadvantaged backgrounds in recent years (see BHW Specific Data Form). Once students matriculate, they have access to many resources to mitigate the non-academic barriers to success in our program. In fact, our program has had a 100% retention rate for students since 2021. Our full-time, in-person cohort model prioritizes collegiality amongst students, between students and faculty, and interprofessional collaboration as students learn and serve in our communities. But we are not able to matriculate some of our strongest applicants each year due to limited resources and students who do matriculate may not be able to complete internships in our surrounding rural communities due to the added cost of travel and the shortages of providers who are available to serve as supervisors in those areas. To accomplish the objectives of this project, we will build on existing partnerships with public K12 schools and public mental health centers and add new initiatives in rural and integrated care settings. We will expand our efforts to recruit applicants from rural areas and applicants who hold other underrepresented and disadvantaged identities in the mental health workforce. As part of our objective to address the financial needs of our students, we will develop a video series demystifying funding options for graduate school and provide $25,000 stipends to seven (7) students each year during their internships in K12 schools or programs serving children, adolescents, and emerging adults in public mental health centers. We will support students in their career development and help them secure employment in underserved areas. We will also expand our support for clinical supervisors who are so crucial to mental health provider success during training and early career transitions by offering stipends for their services and continuing education opportunities related to clinical supervision. We will facilitate interprofessional opportunities for collaboration to cultivate teams of support for children, adolescents, and emerging adults in our region. Virginia Tech has a high rate for placing graduates in practice settings that have a principal focus of serving residents in HPSA Mental Health Provider Shortage Areas, Medically Underserved Areas, and Rural Communities and is therefore requesting a funding preference. As detailed in Attachment 8, 69% of 2022-2023 graduates and 91% of 2023-2024 graduates are employed in Mental Health Provider Shortage Areas.
