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Substance Use and Treatment Services for the LGBTQ Community
Research reveals that individuals who identify as being part of the LGBTQ community represent a higher percentage of substance users as compared to those who do not identify. In fact, there are estimates to maintain that about 20 to 30 percent of the LGBTQ population is using substances as compared...
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BHN Spring 2016 Issue
"Preparing the New Behavioral Health Workforce” Articles in This...
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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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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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Effective Supervision: An Essential Component to Enhancing Consumer Outcomes
The behavioral healthcare industry is facing a monumental time of change. The mental health field in particular is faced with putting more responsibility on consumers to drive their own treatment. No longer, it seems, will a person with mental health challenges be cared for in a prescriptive, or...
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Looking Ahead: The Future of Behavioral Health
Integrated care that aims to treat the whole person, including addiction, mental health and primary care needs, is changing the landscape of healthcare. These changes are ushering in a new era for addictions professionals. The New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (NYS...
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More Than Just a Change in Title: New Statewide Effort Supports the Move from Case Management to Care Management
How does one move from working as a Case Manager to a successful Care Manager? The change in title is simply the exchange of one letter, the ‘s’ for an ‘r’. However, the change from one role to the other is not so simple. It’s been almost five years since New York State instituted...
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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...
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Building an Integrated Healthcare System: Blending Public Health and Prevention Models
The very first time I ever thought about physical and behavioral healthcare together was when I heard of a psychiatrist who wanted to do complete blood chemistry before prescribing medication to new patients within a mental health clinic, a unique situation some 20 years ago. Clearly, this...
