The Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska (BHECN) recently hosted the first installment of a free webinar series highlighting current innovative behavioral health workforce development practices throughout the nation.
The federal Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is sponsoring the series, along with the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors, National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors, BHECN and The Annapolis Coalition on the Behavioral Health Workforce.
The collaboration is a new relationship for BHECN, said director Howard Liu, M.D., and arose in the wake of a national SAMHSA webinar on behavioral health workforce innovations that BHECN representatives attended.
“Afterward, I emailed Anne Herron, the SAMHSA workforce director, and asked whether there was some forum for states to share their innovations,” Dr. Liu said.
The answer was no, but SAMHSA was more than willing to partner with BHECN and other agencies to create such a series — with BHECN blazing the way.
“She asked us if we would lead off the series by talking about the work that BHECN has done for Nebraska in partnership with the Department of Health and Human Services Division of Behavioral Health,” Dr. Liu said. “So this was actually the kickoff webinar.”
The result was a resounding success, with 390 attendees from 48 states, Canada
and Puerto Rico.
Sheri Dawson, the director of the Division of Behavioral Health at the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, said that the SAMHSA webinar allowed the state and BHECN to showcase “Nebraska’s unique approach to workforce development.”
“State level behavioral health teams across the nation will learn from and build upon workforce solutions that are innovative and actionable,” Dawson said. “The BHECN/DHHS partnership is ultimately about ensuring Nebraskans can access services delivered by competent behavioral health providers.”
The effort also drew a thumbs-up from Herron.
“The quarterly webinar series is our attempt to highlight some of the exciting and innovative work that states are engaged in to assist other states who are exploring their options,” she said. “To be able to kick off this series through the work of BHECN sets a high bar for all the states that follow.”
The series will fill a need, Dr. Liu said.
“The tricky thing about workforce is, it kind of exists in a section between so many agencies and institutions that you really have to have a separate forum to bring them together,” he said.
Great!