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Licensed Practical Nurses: Furthering the Goal of Integrated Health
It is a startling and sad fact that individuals with serious mental health problems on average die earlier than those without mental health issues. An article in JAMA Psychiatry reported that these premature deaths are primarily due to largely preventable conditions, such as high blood pressure,...
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Strengthening the Addiction Workforce and Beyond
Over 20,000 professionals make up the Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Prevention, Treatment and Recovery Workforce in NYS. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the SUD workforce will grow at a much faster rate than other occupations in the country and in NYS. The Credentialed Alcoholism and...
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The Impact of Youth Peer Advocates: An Early Look at Findings
The incorporation of peer support in the treatment process for individuals experiencing mental health challenges has been increasing over recent decades (Campbell, 2005). Adults with mental health conditions have pursued roles as facilitators in recovery-based work (Mead, Hilton & Curtis,...
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Peers in the Workforce: Reversing Misconceptions and Succeeding
This article is part of a quarterly series giving voice to the perspectives of individuals with lived experiences as they share their opinions on a particular topic. The authors of this column facilitated a focus group of their peers to inform this writing. The authors are served by Services for...
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Primary Care Integration: Alternative Workforce Strategies for Community-Based Behavioral Health Service Organizations in the Era of Physician Shortages
It has been many years since the surgeon general report declared that vastly poor health outcomes for persons suffering from behavioral health disorders was a public health crisis. Lives filled with long term disability and early mortality caused, in part, by service fragmentation within the U.S....
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Rural Workforce Development: Critical Challenges
The critical challenges that are associated with rural workforce development remain a significant issue in America. We have an obligation to explore the best ways of caring for the underserved rural population. Currently we have a health professions crisis unfolding. The federal government projects...
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Staff Development at the Mental Health Association of Westchester
In recent editions of Behavioral Health News, we have written of sweeping transformations in services offered at The Mental Health Association of Westchester (MHA). These transformations require critical staff development - learning new skills and new processes of working. To manage these changes,...
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Self-Care is Essential to Well-being at Work
By now, “self-care” and “workplace wellness” aren’t novel concepts. It would be difficult not to find myriad references to both in the popular and professional press. Many organizations, including in the private sector, healthcare and government have embraced employee wellness programs,...
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The Behavioral Health Workforce Crisis: Past, Present, and Future
First on the list of topics for this issue of Behavioral Health News was “The Workforce Crisis Today.” That’s interesting because the workforce “crisis” is anything but new. For example, when I first entered this field during the height of deinstitutionalization in New York—the early...
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The Experience of Workplace Stress and Compassion Satisfaction of Licensed Social Workers
Employed in fast-paced, often poorly funded agencies and working with clients who have experienced significant traumas, many licensed social workers are believed to experience a high degree of stress. At the same time, many feel emotionally fulfilled by their work and experience “compassion...
