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New Tool Deployed to Help Veterans: Supported Recovery Training and Certification
The prevalence of suicide, addiction to alcohol and other drugs, homelessness, unemployment, incarceration, physical and mental health challenges, and the need for health and social services is disproportionate among Veterans compared to the general population. Among Veterans, one in six who served...
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How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affects the Future of Behavioral Health Care
“Out of all human events, it is tragedy alone that brings people out of their own petty desires and into awareness of other humans’ suffering. Tragedy occurs in human lives so that we will learn to reach out and comfort others.” - C. S. Lewis Throughout history, we have learned many of...
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A Lesson in Resiliency
The Pandemic has and continues to challenge everyone in many similar and different ways. The profound loss of lives and continuing vigilance and preparation/adjustment on part of everyone has tested the limits of many individuals, families, businesses and organizations. Increased stress and...
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New York State Office of Mental Health Enhances Recruitment Efforts to Address Workforce Shortages
As New York State faces another wave of COVID-19, the need for access to mental health care in our communities has never been more urgent. Unfortunately, healthcare delivery systems across the nation are overwhelmed and understaffed. And while this workforce shortage presents many challenges, it...
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Federal and State Vaccine Mandates and The Behavioral Health Workforce
The COVID-19 public health emergency has contributed to workforce crises across almost all industries, fields and professions. The behavioral health field has not been immune. Even worse, behavioral health has historically been impacted by workforce challenges, stemming from “chronic underfunding...
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Let’s Celebrate Our Workforce
Every day when he left home to serve as the attending psychiatrist at an inpatient unit at a general hospital, he wondered whether he would contract COVID at work that day and bring it home to his wife and two small children. Maybe he had already brought it home. Had stripping in the garage and...
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From Crisis to Connection: Meeting the Workforce Shortage Head On
The workforce shortage has been felt keenly in the behavioral health field (BHECON, 2018). To effectively address this shortage, we must identify its root causes, understand dynamics that result in staff resignation decisions and connect the perceived impact on business sustainability while...
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Lessons of COVID-19: Staff Dedication and Skill Key to Success
The Institute for Community Living (ICL) compass shines brightly on our North Star: “People get better with us.” This simple yet profound message has given us meaning and purpose during unprecedented social upheaval. We know, empirically, that what matters most and keeps people in their job is...
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Training the Workforce in Non-Traditional Modalities of Self-Care: A COVID-19 Silver-Lining
Over the past 18 months, the pandemic and the many associated societal stressors, have caused great suffering, and the behavioral health (BH) workforce has been no exception. The novel coronavirus and ongoing pandemic have wrought tremendous personal loss, job and/or income insecurity, and forced...
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Help Wanted! Now More Than Ever
A 2016 report of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) offered a bleak depiction of the current and future state of the nation’s behavioral health services workforce. Nearly half the American population resides in a designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA), and...
