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SAMHSA Announces $231M Funding Opportunity to Administer 988 Lifeline
The SAMHSA-funded 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline received more than 8 million contacts from help seekers in 2025 The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a division within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), announced today a $231M funding...
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Building and Maintaining New York’s Behavioral Health Care Workforce
New York State has made tremendous investments in mental health treatment and services since 2022 and has made great progress addressing mental health needs in our State with a series of initiatives, such as expanding prevention and access, embracing innovative treatment methods, and increasing...
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Building Sanctuary: Creating Trauma-Informed Workplaces to Heal Burnout and Secondary Trauma in Behavioral Health
The quiet exhaustion in Sarah’s eyes told a story that statistics could never capture. After eight years as a behavioral health nurse, she found herself sitting in her car each morning, summoning the strength to walk through the clinic doors. Anxiety in her chest, her neck, and the very hands she...
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Do Higher Wages, Benefits, and Career Development Reduce Turnover in Behavioral Health?
The sector that is responsible for the care and treatment of individuals with behavioral health conditions is vital. It is directly involved with the patients and their families. Yet, this sector faces an extraordinary problem that is not seen in other healthcare sectors: very high and persistent...
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Building the Future: Workforce Innovation in Behavioral Health for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities
As behavioral health needs among individuals with developmental disabilities (DD) become more complex and widespread, the workforce tasked with supporting them is under extraordinary pressure. To ensure quality, continuity, and person-centered care, behavioral health systems must invest in...
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Transforming Access Through Strategic Investment in Behavioral Health Workforce Development
In the face of rising demand for behavioral health care and persistent workforce shortages, NYC Health + Hospitals has made workforce development a central lever for system transformation. Through a suite of programs focused on recruitment, retention, training, and expanded career pathways, we are...
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Supporting Supervisors and Mid-Level Leaders in Behavioral Health Organizations
More than five years after the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the nation, the behavioral health field continues to undergo profound and lasting shifts. Early in the pandemic, the World Health Organization (2022) reported a global 25 percent increase in anxiety and depressive disorders, a surge that...
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Strengthening the Backbone: Supporting Mid-Level Managers in Nonprofit Organizations
Nonprofit organizations operate in environments marked by complexity, rapid policy shifts, and ongoing community needs. Services for the UnderServed (S:US) is one of New York City’s largest and most comprehensive human services agencies. S:US supports thousands of New Yorkers each year by...
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Investing in the Behavioral Health Workforce: Training, Professional Development, and Advancing Clinical Excellence
Behavioral health clinicians are seeing more patients with complex, co-occurring disorders and acute symptoms that require multidisciplinary care. At the same time, referrals and expectations for timely, high-quality care are rising. These demands take a toll on care quality and clinician...
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The People Behind Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Neuromodulation
Protocol is important in Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), but what makes the biggest difference is consistent care and support. A patient comes in every day depressed, exhausted, and not sure it will work. But there’s a person who made it easier to show up anyway. In TMS care, that person...
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A Faltering Behavioral Health Workforce and a Prescription for Progress
The behavioral healthcare workforce is under considerable duress and ill equipped to meet a moment marked by unprecedented rates of mental illness, substance dependence, and other indices of human distress. By some measures, approximately half of mental health professionals report burnout because...
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The NYSPA Report: Federal and State Coverage of Telehealth and Its Role in Expanding Access to Mental Health Care
Following the COVID-19 public health emergency, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) made permanent expansions to the coverage of telehealth under the Medicare program. CMS has greatly increased the number of services included on the permanent list of telehealth services and...
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From Collaboration to Impact: How a Foundation and CBO Are Strengthening the Behavioral Health Workforce for Older Adults
I am delighted that my colleague Marc Damsky, Senior Program Officer at the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation (MCHF), has joined me for a conversation about workforce innovation as it relates to mental health and aging. We are proud that MCHF is currently supporting two workforce projects at Service...
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Workforce Solutions in Behavioral Health: Insights from SMA Healthcare
The Behavioral Healthcare Workforce Crisis The behavioral healthcare sector faces one of the most severe workforce shortages in decades. As of 2023, an estimated 169 million individuals in the U.S. live in Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas, which is projected to worsen by 2037 (National...
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Innovative Training Through Personal Connections: How a Behavioral Health Podcast Is Transforming Staff Development
In today’s rapidly changing behavioral health landscape, frontline staff often face complex challenges that require continuous learning, updating skills, and meaningful guidance from those with deep expertise. Traditional training formats, while valuable, can be difficult to attend due to time...
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Strengthening the Behavioral Health Workforce Through Upstream Overdose Prevention
I came to this work with a personal understanding of how overdose affects families and communities. I lost my brother to an unintentional fentanyl overdose two years ago after he took a pill that he believed was oxycodone, given by someone he trusted. The loss reshaped how I understood...
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Addiction, Treatment, and the Evolution of Therapeutic Communities: The Legacy of Dr. David A. Deitch
David A. Deitch, PhD, is one of the most influential figures in the modern history of addiction treatment. A clinical and social psychologist, he currently holds the title of Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, where he founded the Center for...
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Westchester County Develops “Lives Forward” Program – Providing Dual Certification MH and Addiction Peer Training to Currently Justice Involved Individuals
The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” Few things illustrate this better than using one’s lived experience to support another person seeking recovery from co-occurring disorders. Now formally recognized as “peer”...
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Turning Data Inward: Predictive Analytics for Early Burnout Prevention in the Behavioral Health Workforce
Burnout doesn’t announce itself. It shows up discreetly in copy-paste patient notes, rushed treatment plans, and quiet complaints to colleagues on a longer-than-it-should-be lunch break. Team morale starts to slump even before they quit, and it gets worse when remaining clinicians inherit their...
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Strengthening the Behavioral Health Workforce: Leadership Strategies for a System in Transition
Across North America, healthcare executives are facing a reality that can no longer be ignored: the behavioral health care workforce is stretched thin, unevenly distributed, and increasingly overwhelmed by the growing complexity of patient needs. The demands of mental health and addictions care...
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Using Trauma-Informed Supervision and Reflective Practice to Navigate Countertransference and Vicarious Trauma
Most mental health professionals currently engage or have engaged in supervision during their careers. Some view this as a chore to be completed as soon as possible during the week. Some view supervision as an opportunity to learn and grow professionally. Some see this as only an administrative...
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An Exclusive Interview with U.S. Soccer Legend Carli Lloyd: Advice for High School Athletes on Mental Health and Thriving Under Pressure
Few athletes know pressure like Carli Lloyd. Across two decades on the world’s biggest stages, she not only met it, but she also thrived in it. I wanted to know her secret. With two Olympic gold medals, two FIFA World Cup championships, she’s a National Soccer Hall of Fame member, and two-time...
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Addressing Nonparticipation in Treatment Courts: The 5 As Framework
Treatment courts face persistent challenges with participants failing to fully engage in treatment or dropping out altogether. Because engagement and retention are critical to public safety and outcomes, treatment courts must understand why nonparticipation occurs and how to respond when it does....
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Re-imagining Conservatorship: Recovery and Career Planning Through Peer Support
For most young people, career guidance centers on traditional roles—doctor, teacher, engineer, builder. Rarely does anyone tell a child struggling with a mental health condition that their experiences might one day qualify them for a career rooted in healing, empathy, and shared understanding....
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Integrated Psycho-Oncology: A Mandate for Behavioral Health Leaders
For decades, the standard of care in oncology has prioritized the defeat of the disease. While medical advancements have transformed cancer into a complex, chronic illness for many, they have left a significant gap in clinical responsibility. The reality is that cancer is a profound psychological...
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Relationships are Defined by How They End: The Importance of Acknowledging Loss at Work
Death, as well as other major losses, is dealt with differently by different agencies and at different times in the life of an agency. Our “work family” is often an important part of our lives, so it is important to realize that dealing with loss at work sets the tone for how these...
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Connecting Workplaces to Wellness: Structural Solutions to Burnout
What percentage of your time at work is spent connecting with others? A central tenet of behavioral and mental health care is how we show up matters. Yet, a desire to care for the wellbeing of others does not directly translate to wellness among our workforces. The National Council for Mental...
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Healing at the Source: How Tribal Nations Are Redefining Substance Use Disorder Treatment
Substance use disorder (SUD) has taken a devastating toll on the Nation’s Tribal Lands, yet Tribal Nations are confronting the crisis with courage, creativity, and cultural wisdom. Native communities carry a disproportionate burden of addiction and mental health challenges while facing some of...
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Amplifying Peer Specialists in the Behavioral Health Continuum of Care
We have witnessed the ongoing strain on our traditional mental health care system over the past five years. There is a growing need for help across communities, where help seekers are experiencing nuanced mental health challenges. From suicidality, stress, bullying, substance misuse, to family...
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Meeting the Moment: Addressing the Challenges to Advance Solutions for Mental Health Clinical Trial Recruitment
Mental health has become one of the most urgent and complex public health challenges of our era. Today, more than 1 billion people globally live with some form of a mental health disorder.1 Among young people, the situation is equally concerning: 1 in 7 adolescents experience a mental health...
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The Impact of Peer-Based Storytelling on Workplace Mental Health
NAMI-NYC participant reflections illustrate why a peer-based approach matters. One participant shared that they did not know anyone in their life who had experience depression and that hearing a peer speak made them feel less isolated, saying, “I don't have anyone who has depression around me, so...
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Keeping Clinicians in Private Practice: AI’s Role in Sustaining the Behavioral Health Workforce
The behavioral health workforce is under strain as demand for mental healthcare continues to accelerate. Over one third of the U.S. population lives in a Mental Health Professional Shortage Area as of 2024. Private practice clinicians are central to serving these communities, offering a low-cost...
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Telehealth and Its Role in Expanding Workforce Capacity
The truth is that accessing healthcare is a part-time activity. There is the morning travel, the hour (or three) you spend waiting in line at the doctor’s office, the panic call to your boss about a late report, again. It is not only a nuisance, but it is a colossal waste of the most precious...
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Relapse Is Part of Recovery, Shame Shouldn’t Be: What I Wish More Families Understood
When someone returns to treatment after a relapse, it’s often with a heavy heart. They walk through our doors carrying the weight of shame, disappointment, and fear of judgment, not just from others, but from themselves. Families often ask, “what went wrong,” and wonder why their loved one...
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What It’s Really Like Living with Bipolar Disorder
As of 2019, 0.53% of people in the world are bipolar, according to a study from the World Health Organization. I am one of them. Living with bipolar disorder isn’t easy. Scholarly journals document the symptoms and struggles that come with this disorder, but they’re far from accurate. Common...
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Reaching the Unreachable: Why Human-Centered Engagement Is the Missing Link in Behavioral Health
Behavioral health needs are a major driver of overall healthcare use and yet they are still often overlooked across the care continuum. The total health care costs of undertreated behavioral health disorders are more than $290 billion each year in the U.S. alone. When behavioral health issues go...
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Using NIATx Process Improvement to Enhance Workforce Recruitment, Hiring, Retention & Promotion
Much of the focus on quality improvement in behavioral health is dedicated to “the what,” as it focuses on enhancing the quality of services through the implementation and sustainment of high-fidelity evidence-based practices. But without also focusing on the process, “the how”, the...
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Maternal Mental Health in CUNY/SUNY Public Universities as a Workforce Development Strategy
Maternal mental health conditions are the most common complication associated with childbirth1 and the leading cause of maternal mortality in New York.2 Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMADs) include depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and psychosis during pregnancy and up to one year postpartum....
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Addressing the Needs of the Perinatal Behavioral Health Workforce
The behavioral health care workforce, including mental health and substance use services, is facing mounting uncertainty at a critical moment. Under the recently passed, One Big Beautiful Bill Act [Congress.gov, 2025], federal loan restrictions will impose strict caps on the borrowing of future...
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Leveraging Behavioral Health Consultants in Integrated Care to Detect and Triage Menopause in Midlife Women
The United States is facing an urgent crisis: a significant shortage of behavioral health professionals that leaves countless individuals without the care they desperately need (Bishop et al., 2024). In this landscape, optimizing the existing workforce is not merely a tactical choice; it is a...
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When Workforce Strategy Becomes a Finance Problem
Every behavioral-health CEO I work with is watching the same crisis unfold. They need more clinicians than the market can supply, and even when they succeed in hiring, keeping those clinicians becomes a significant challenge. More than 122 million Americans live in areas where they might struggle...
