Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training Program - Funding Opportunity Number: HRSA-25-068 Assistance Listing Number(s): 93.732 Applicant Name: Webster University Descriptive Title: Webster Institute for Clinical Scholarship (WICS) Project Address: College of Science and Health | Webster University, 470 E Lockwood Avenue?| Saint Louis, MO 63119? Project Director: Muthoni Musangali, PhD, LPC Contact Phone Numbers: Voice 314-246-8278, Fax 314-968-6094 Email Address: muthoni08@webster.edu Website Address: https://www.webster.edu/wics/index.php Grant program funds requested: $2,400,000 Webster University will expand the scope of our Webster Institute for Clinical Scholarship (WICS) program to further address mental and behavioral health provider shortages and service gaps in the St. Louis, Missouri area. We will focus on approaches and providers who work with children, adolescents, and youth (CAY) who are currently underserved by our system, including those who are marginalized due to race and/or ethnicity, individuals who have experienced high levels of individual and social traumas, and those with higher risk of developing substance use disorders. Webster will build on existing infrastructure to further address the ongoing gaps for CAY in medically underserved communities and populations of St. Louis. WICS will promote increased representation from historically underrepresented populations by supporting these students in accessing learning, while also creating a program and system that is supportive of the needs of underserved CAY. Key elements of this framework include (1) increased stipends to support students from disadvantaged and marginalized backgrounds and those with expressed intent to work in communities serving this population; (2) enhanced curriculum focused on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and ecological counseling; (3) additional interprofessional learning between Clinical Mental Health Counseling (CMHC) and students from other helping professions; (4) increased investments in training clinical supervisors; and (5) an expanded reach through additional experiential sites serving the targeted youth populations. Webster will establish a Clinical Supervision Academy (CSA) to advance culturally competent and trauma-informed clinical supervisor training. We will develop a comprehensive curriculum that will include cultural competency, ecological counseling, and ACEs-informed counseling to better equip clinical supervisors in supporting diverse trainees and clients. The CSA will also include trainings on resiliency, mindfulness, and other self-care topics to promote retention, decrease burnout, and help the clinical supervisor fellows address emotional and psychological strain. The WICS team will also work with licensing agencies to incorporate cultural competency into clinical supervision training, certification, and renewal. The CSA will create a pipeline of culturally competent clinical supervisors and mentors for newly graduated CMHCs and build capacity of our internship site workforce. Webster will train students in the CMHC program to address critical unmet mental and behavioral health needs in St. Louis. We will provide didactic training in counseling and trauma and culturally informed care. WICS scholars will be CMHC students entering their final two-semester internship who have an interest in pursuing a counseling career serving high-needs CAY populations in high-demand areas. Webster will also support our students in addressing non-academic barriers to degree completion.
