SAMHSA Continues to Address Our Workforce Crisis

Ron Manderscheid, PhD

Adjunct Professor

Johns Hopkins University

&

University of Southern California

The upcoming winter solstice signals a very significant turning point regarding the change of season and our behavior in response. Right now, we are being presented with a similar turning point in our continuing behavioral health workforce crisis: Will we allow the crisis to continue and even deepen? Will we take action to mitigate it? The choice is ours.

Fortunately for us, on December 12 and 13, SAMHSA’s Office of Behavioral Health Equity hosted a Policy Summit: Re-Envisioning the Behavioral Health Workforce--Focusing on Underserved Communities. Held at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Bethesda, Maryland, this is the second conference on the behavioral health workforce crisis hosted by this SAMHSA office during 2024. The first was held in mid-January. We are very grateful to Assistant Secretary Dr. Miriam Delphin-Rittmon and Office of Behavioral Health Equity Director Dr. Larke Huang for this new opportunity to consider the key issues in the crisis and to begin plotting a bold new course forward.

Dr. Delphin-Rittmon welcomed the 160 conference participants and enjoined them to consider three primary actions in their deliberations: create equity, collaborate across sectors, and be innovative and flexible. Dr. Huang followed and emphasized the importance of addressing workforce issues in order to improve the behavioral health continuum of care, including upstream prevention activities. She charged participants to make bold recommendations about workforce development needs around four key anchors: infrastructure, financing, training, and policy.

Subsequently, panels followed on both days of the conference to determine the current status and needed changes around each of these four anchors. Some of the key recommendations from these panels include the necessity to build federal and state organizational and data infrastructure to support a re-envisioned behavioral health workforce; to develop service financing mechanisms that are more equitable in order to provide better support for both professionals and peers; to develop and transform current training practices to reflect changes in service delivery and the needs of those entering the behavioral health workforce; and to implement policy changes at all levels to address major inequities currently suffered by those minorities delivering and receiving behavioral health care.

Interspersed with these panels were others that described how SAMHSA and HRSA programs currently are addressing training and service development needs; how states, national associations, and community-based organizations are responding to the workforce crisis; and how some exemplar organizations are addressing the “pain points” in career pathways.

At the end of each day, all conference participants were given the opportunity to reflect and to make specific recommendations. On day two, this included concrete recommendations in fifteen areas ranging from Rural Access and Telehealth Policy to Connecting CBOs and State Leadership, to Connecting Federal Efforts. Further, in the short-term future, SAMHSA is expected to release fifteen more detailed “play books” that offer recommendations from field experts for how to address these issues.

What are the primary takeaways? First, infrastructure development will be critical at all levels—federal, state, county, city, private sector. A federal Office of Behavioral Health Workforce Practice with appropriate staff and funds will be required to lead these developments. Second, SAMHSA is making progress in defining the nature of the crisis and how to respond to it. We must encourage SAMHSA to continue and expand this work. Third, our organized advocacy will be essential to make the case to the Congress and Administration that federal infrastructure development will be essential for assuring that high quality behavioral health services will be available in the future for all who require them.

Once again, our hats are off to SAMHSA, to Dr. Delphin-Rittmon, and Dr. Huang for a very successful conference.

Let’s get at it!

© 2024 RW Manderscheid