California university receives multimillion dollar grant to develop BH workforce

Abstract

Palo Alto University (PAU) has been awarded two workforce development grants from the state of California totaling $6.7 million, according to an April 4 university news release. The grants address the significant behavioral health workforce shortage. The first grant is a “Social Work Education Capacity Expansion Grant” in the amount of $1.5 million from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information. The grant aims to increase the supply of staff trained to provide behavioral health care through the development of new social work programs, especially programs aimed at training students to serve children and youth. The funds will support the expansion of PAU's degree offerings to include a prospective master's degree in social work. Grant funds will support the hiring of qualified faculty and staff to start developing the program. The second award is a $5.2 million five‐year contract from the California Mental Health Services Authority to prepare and educate 50 current [Palo Alto] county employees to earn a mental health counseling degree from PAU. There will be two cohorts of county employees who will be selected from rural counties with exceptionally inadequate mental health services and from underrepresented communities to support the goals of diversifying the mental health profession.