The School’s Northwest Leaders in Behavioral Health Training Program (NLBHP) has received a grant of $480,000 a year for four years to help fund stipends and specialized behavioral health training for students and field supervisors. The grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) supports curriculum development and training activities, an intensive integrative seminar for trainees, support for field instructors and a $10,000 stipend to 29 students each year. Over the course of four years, the grant will provide $1.92 million in student stipends. The Northwest Leaders in Behavioral Health Program recruits and trains a cadre of outstanding social work practitioners prepared for interprofessional behavioral health prevention and clinical intervention with individuals, across the lifespan, who are at risk of or who have developed a behavioral health disorder.
Among this year’s 136 award recipients, 58 support social work programs. This is noteworthy becaue social work was excluded from the 2016 funding opportunity. The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) worked with congressional champions and HRSA to ensure social work was included in this year’s opportunity.
HRSA’s Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training program hopes to develop and expand the behavioral health workforce; the program places special emphasis on establishing internships or field placement programs in behavioral health that include interdisciplinary training for students, interns, faculty members and field supervisors. The program is among only a few federal sources of funding that help strengthen the pipeline of social workers in behavioral health.