Workforce Development

• Establish a Public Mental Health Leadership Development Program
  SAMHSA should partner with local and state public authorities and private sector entities to create a leadership development program that would provide mental health professionals with opportunities and incentives to enhance their skills and play a role in creating and mapping the future of public mental health services in this country.
  
  
• Update accrediting standards for professional schools and training programs
  SAMHSA, in collaboration with HRSA, and in consultation with appropriate accrediting bodies should assess and update the quality of mental health professions' practice and education to ensure that evidence-based practices are being taught and incorporated into practice in the field in terms of philosophy, practice, and standards.
  
  
• Re-define and expand the Mental Health Professional Shortage Area Designation Program
  Legislation should be enacted that re-defines and expands the Mental Health Professional Shortage Area Designation Program. The existing mental health professional shortage designation program should be expanded to include service within any public sector agency providing services to Medicaid beneficiaries. This expansion of the definition would take into account the fact that a given area may have ample providers on a per capita ratio but not have practitioners who are willing to serve individuals who are in the public system. The existing mental health shortage designation program needs to be broadly promoted and used as a recruitment tool especially with students who are ethnic minorities in graduate schools and residency programs.
  
  
• Expand or establish loan repayment, scholarship, and grant programs
  Legislation should be enacted that re-institutes historic federally-funded scholarship programs to increase the number of individuals, particularly those of ethnic minorities, who attend professional schools in medicine, social work, psychology and nursing. Such legislation should establish a grant program to graduate schools to facilitate the development of internships and fieldwork placements in the area of public mental health. A grant program should also be developed for public sector agencies to provide tuition reimbursement programs/work release programs to allow existing paraprofessional staff to return to graduate school to receive graduate degrees in social work, psychology and nursing.
  
  
• Reauthorize and expand the J-1-Visa Waiver Program
  The Federal government should administratively continue and expand the J-1 Visa Waiver program in order to increase the number of mental health professionals in underserved areas.