Newsworthy Work

The HELC consists of colleges and universities in Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky that offers behavioral health programs. The RBHWC convenes the HELC in order to provide opportunities for higher education institutions to develop and share ideas and strategies with each other, as well as build relationships with providers that employ different professions in the behavioral health field and provide services across the region and to different populations. who can help inform these ideas and strategies and learn how they can better support our future professionals in their education and transition to the workforce.

Currently, the HELC consists of participants from 13 colleges and universities: Central State University, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, Miami University, Mount St. Joseph University, Northern Kentucky University, Shawnee State University, Southern State Community College, Sinclair College, University of Cincinnati, University of Dayton, Wright State University, Wilberforce University, and Xavier University.

In March, Workforce Development Boards (WDBs) in Ohio received RFIs from the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services on behavioral health workforce projects. Pam Massey with the Workforce Council of Southwest Ohio and a member of the RBHWC Advisory Committee quickly pulled together a planning team of other members of the RBHWC to develop a response to this request. This planning team consisted of Pam Massey, Maureen Donallon (Talbert House), LaNora Godfrey (Hamilton County Mental Health and Recovery Services Board), Lisa Myers (Interact for Health), Sharron DiMario (University of Cincinnati Area Health Education Center), and Meredith Poynter (Mental Health & Addiction Advocacy Coalition).

The RBHWC is one of up to 35 teams across the nation to be selected for this national ECHO. Designed around case-based learning and mentorship, ECHO sessions engage participants from across the country in peer-to-peer discussions. Each ECHO session will consist of a didactic presentation, a case presentation and discussion.

This ECHO will focus on scalable solutions to help stakeholders work together to alleviate workforce challenges impacting community mental health provider organizations based in the six core areas of the framework - Clinical Model, Payment, Policy, Workforce Expansion, Regulatory, and Quality and Accountability

HealthFORCE, an annual health career fair organized by The Health Collaborative, included the RBHWC for the first time in 2023. Coalition members were able to bring awareness to the opportunities within the Behavioral Health field to over 700 High School students. Behavioral Health was also well represented during the panel discussion, with clinical counselor Rachael DuBois, M.S.Ed., LPCC-S, CCTP and 3rd year UC medical student Delaney Schrenk who plans to be a psychiatrist in community behavioral health.

Meredith Poynter lifted up the Regional Behavioral Health Workforce Coalition's work during a TCN Roundtable on Mental Health: Tackling Behavioral Health Equity and Access to Care. Other panelists were OhioMHAS Director Lori Criss, and Interact for Health's President & CEO Kate Schroder.

WCPO Channel 9 News report - 'Nowhere close to where we need to be': Shortage of Black therapists in Cincinnati worries health experts RBHWC members Ashley Glass (Black Women Cultivating Change) and Meredith Poynter (Mental Health & Addiction Advocacy Coalition) were in a report about the behavioral health workforce shortage, with a focus on the shortage of Black therapists in Cincinnati. The report included information on the RBHWC local initiative.

RBHWC met with Ohio General Assembly members and provided proponent testimony in support of a bill to enter Ohio into the Social Work Interstate Compact. The bill was signed into law early 2024, making Ohio the 11th state to pass such legislation. Being an early adopter will allow Ohio to be one of the states to be at the table to create the Compact for the nation. Kentucky also passed a bill to join the Social Work Interstate Compact and was one of the first 7, which is the minimum to create an interstate licensure compact.