UNMC’s Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska American Rescue Plan Act Awards Program has significantly increased the number of behavioral health students and provisionally licensed providers who receive supervision in Nebraska, new evaluation data show.
As part of their career paths, many behavioral health students and provisionally licensed trainees must spend time working with fully licensed providers to complete their coursework and licensure requirements.
A common struggle in Nebraska and other states is finding enough licensed providers to supervise students and provisionally licensed providers, said Jessie Buche, director of the ARPA Awards Program at BHECN. A major reason for this is that fully licensed providers receive little to no compensation for their time supervising students and provisionally licensed providers, she said.
“Lack of compensation has caused many licensed providers in Nebraska to forgo being supervisors because they need to take time away from their practices,” Buche said. “This historically made it difficult to help students find needed internships and created barriers to provisionally licensed providers achieving full licensure.”
A lack of supervision was identified as a major contributor to Nebraska’s behavioral health workforce shortage, and thus an entire category of ARPA funding was dedicated to addressing this issue, said BHECN Director Marley Doyle, MD.
The ARPA Awards Program formed after the Nebraska Legislature charged BHECN with distributing pandemic recovery funds to address key behavioral health issues. Through the program, 19 organizations in Nebraska received funding to support supervision. The organizations have done this by using the funds to compensate supervisors’ time, pay supervisees and offset costs for testing materials and other licensure needs.
Organizations receiving support to bolster supervision increased the total number of supervisees from 97 to 174, representing a 79% increase after one year of the BHECN-ARPA Awards Program.
A closer look at specific behavioral health professions showed that ARPA support allowed for a 206% increase in the number of mental health counseling supervisees, a 100% increase in social work supervisees and a 50% increase in drug and alcohol supervisees among award recipients.
“These data illustrate how the Legislature displayed tremendous wisdom in investing in behavioral health,” Dr. Doyle said. “Our evaluations indicate that ARPA dollars are already having a powerful impact in this area after just one year of funding, and this has major implications for those who receive behavioral health services throughout our state.”
The evaluation data also show that financial support from the ARPA awards reduced barriers that previously kept awardees from providing more supervision, said Melissa Tibbits, PhD, assistant director of evaluation at BHECN.
“Many providers indicated that they are more willing and able to provide supervision thanks to the financial support they received from the awards,” Dr. Tibbits said. “This kind of financial support really can have an impact on removing barriers to grow our behavioral health workforce.”
Conversations with awardees have illustrated that ARPA supervision dollars are helping Nebraska providers recruit and retain behavioral health professionals, which directly address the state’s workforce shortage, while also helping supervisors experience the benefits and learning that come from providing supervision, Buche said.
“The benefits that come from this investment in supervision are manyfold,” Buche said. “It’s been very rewarding to see our awardees have such powerful experiences while they simultaneously help us strengthen Nebraska’s behavioral health workforce.”