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Promoting Cultural Competence to Address Health Disparities and Improve Health Outcomes
Health disparities are preventable differences in health outcomes that are experienced by disadvantaged populations. They are a leading factor in the incidence, prevalence, mortality, and burden of health conditions across specific populations in the US. These factors can influence the available...
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BHN Spring 2016 Issue
"Preparing the New Behavioral Health Workforce” Articles in This...
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Building a Quality Behavioral Health Workforce: Employing Service-User Perspectives Throughout Your Organization
With the introduction of Managed Behavioral Health Care in October of 2015 and the soon to be implemented Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), engagement of “peers” in the workforce has become a topic of considerable interest. HCBS introduces peer support as a Medicaid billable service...
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A Behavioral Health Workforce for An Aging America
As efforts are made to improve America’s inadequate behavioral health workforce, the needs of older adults should be a central concern. By 2030, Americans over the age of 65 will become as large a portion of the population as children under the age of 18. But there is far more interest in...
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Addressing Workforce Challenges in Serving Individuals with Co-Occurring MI/IDD
Individuals with mental illness (MI) co-occurring with intellectual/developmental disability (IDD) have complex needs and present clinical challenges to the professionals, programs, and systems. These individuals are among the most challenging, expensive, and intractable to work with. Although the...
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Brief Inpatient Psychiatric Treatment: Designing Social Work Education to Enhance Clinical Practice
Over the past several years, the primary focus of inpatient psychiatric treatment has moved to a model of brief treatment and shortened length of stay. There have been many factors driving this, including the advent of managed care. The main goal of inpatient treatment has become rapid assessment...
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Developing Workforce Knowledge Through Technical Assistance
The transition to Medicaid Managed Care holds the promise of moving the behavioral health system toward the triple aim. It requires many organizational changes, from responding to and managing shifting resources, to shifts in job descriptions and roles to which agencies must acclimate. The result,...
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The Challenges of Hiring and Retaining Top Talent
Management consultant, educator, and author Peter Drucker stated, “Making a living is no longer enough. Work also has to make a life.” In this economic climate, many organizations have designed initiatives to nurture its rising talent. It makes good economic sense, as high-performance...
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The Foundations of a New “Wellness” Workforce
A revolution in the payment and delivery of behavioral health services is poised to transform the healthcare industry and all of its participants. Key stakeholders, including service recipients and their families, medical professionals, social service and community-based organizations, governmental...
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Supporting Peer Specialists
An increasingly common workforce issue is preparing “traditional” providers for working beside peer providers, that is, individuals with the lived experience of mental health issues. SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) defines a peer provider as “a person who...
