Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training for Professionals and Paraprofessionals

Abstract Project to Expand and Enhance Behavioral Health Training for MSW Students University of Kentucky College of Social Work (UKCOSW) Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training for Professionals (HRSA-14-077) The proposed project will expand UKCOSW MSW training slots by 10 students per year and enhance field placement activities so that a total of 30 (10 new +20 existing) students per year receive in-depth training in primary behavioral healthcare.1 Training will emphasize children, adolescent and transitional–age youth, with special focus on prevention and treatment for those at risk for harmful behaviors, including violence. Families will be involved in interventions to prevent and treat behavioral health conditions. The primary site of field placement activities will be in the University of Kentucky Department of Family and Community Medicine (DFCM) where trainees will deliver integrated care in DFCM’s Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) interprofessionally with family medicine, psychology, advanced nurse practitioner, pharmacy, nursing staff and peer support professionals and trainees. Project Objectives: 1. Expand program to add ten additional MSW students per year. Thirty students per year will receive training and stipends under this program. 2. Develop and implement primary behavioral health care field placement experience in the DFCM PCMH 3. Develop and deliver required, ancillary experiential activities to: a. Prepare students for their field placement and correlate during field placement. b. Develop special and required didactics on violence in these populations. c. Meaningfully expose students to services that provide specialized and intensive treatment and public health, preventative interventions for at-risk populations. d. Prepare and consolidate student knowledge and skills for interdisciplinary practice. 4. Evaluate program and disseminate findings. Training Activities. UK COSW has required, full accreditation by the Council on Social Work Education, with continuous CSWE accreditation since 1972 with it most recent renewal in 2010. The graduate MSW program currently trains 100-140 students in two tracks: Clinical Social Work and Community and Social Development for the second year of MSW study and 240-280 students at any given time for the entire two year MSW study period. The second year 1 Behavioral healthcare consists of treatment for mental health and substance abuse conditions. practicum consists of 600 hours of practicum experience over two semesters with 60 hours being in seminar related work connected to the field placement. Objective 1. The proposed project will add an additional 10 students per year in the Clinical Social Work track and a total of 30 students per year in that track will receive the specialized training sought by this funding initiative. Objective 2. The primary training activity for the MSW students will be service in the DFCM PCMH. Training will be structured in accord with the clinic arrangement of having five service pod teams. Teams consist of family medicine attendings and residents, nurse practitioners and clinical nursing staff with psychology and Pharm.D. disciplines assigned across teams. Two students will be assigned to each team, serving in the morning or afternoon. To coordinate and integrate care, each team “huddles” at shift beginning. Unique needs of patients to be seen are discussed. Students will participate by identifying patients in need of social work interventions based on either preliminary investigation of patient medical record or team discussion. Students will then follow a case management to work with those patients during that shift as well as follow-up with patients securing needed services and ensuring patient follow through. Work may consist of interviewing to obtain a biopsychosocial assessment of the patient and motivational interviewing and brief psychological interventions for mental and substance abuse disorders. Children and families at risk for severe behavioral health conditions will be identified, tracked (with permission) with special services secured. Objective 3C. Students will have a longitudinal experience where they engage in multiple activities exposing them to services in support of children and families at risk for behavioral health conditions and violence. Ideally, students will follow their patients initially identified in the DFCM through the services. Services will include those provided by bluegrass conference of care which is a public mental health system in the region and provides multiple services for at-risk families, services provided by the court system including diversionary and probationary activities, specialty mental health and substance abuse treatment, visits to youth and family shelters and police activities including ride alongs with police teams trying to work with youth. MSW students will pair with family medicine residents participating in their longitudinal community medicine rotation. Objective 4: to provide twenty one year stipends to MSW students who are working in other areas of behavioral health across the common wealth of Kentucky including eastern Kentucky. The College of Social Work currently has 10 field practicum placement s with Kentucky KVC behavioral health and students doing their second year placement often have a pipeline into various behavioral health positions once they graduate. The UKCOSW also has multiple second year field placements with the Center on Trauma and Children, The Ridge Behavioral Health System, and other behavioral health providers all of which serve children, adolescents, and transitional-age children. The twenty positions will be used to 1) build our relationships with already existing partners by providing quality students with stipends, and 2) building other primary care relationships across the state with such entities as St Joseph’s healthcare and Baptist Healthcare by offering students with stipend position and offering the training provided by the COSW. Key Personnel: Carlton D. Craig, PhD., DCSW will serve as the principal investigator and will ensure that social work training objectives including didactic preparation for the student and group and needed individual supervision is provided during the field placement are provided. He is Director of Graduate Studies for UKCSW, is the Vernon R. Wiehe Endowed Professor in Family Violence and is Associate Research Faculty in the UK Center on Trauma and Children. Bill Elder PhD is a Professor and Director of Behavioral Science for the DFCM. He will be responsible for integration of the student activities delivering behavioral healthcare in the DFCM and PCMH. He is a current and past HRSA funded principal investigator for a program to train medical students in community medicine and care of the underserved, is published on the topics of integrated behavioral health care and child behavioral health problems, among others, and is a former member of the HRSA Advisory Panel on Interdisciplinary Community Based Linkages, representing the profession of psychology.