Sisters of Charity Foundation of Canton working to build the behavioral-health workforce

Tuesday, May 07, 2019

Tags: Sisters of Charity Foundation of Canton , Foundations

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The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Canton and Stark County Mental Health and Addiction Recovery (StarkMHAR) have teamed up to work with area universities to recruit and retain the pool of local behavioral-health workers. The first workforce program to launch brings the University of Akron’s masters of social work program to Canton. The workforce initiative is funded by $150,000 from StarkMHAR and another $300,000 from the foundation, which is a ministry of the Sisters of Charity Health System. The Repository wrote about the initiative. The full text of the article follows or is available here.

Building the behavioral-health workforce

By Shane Hoover, The Repository
May 6, 2019

StarkMHAR, Sisters of Charity Foundation team up to recruit and retain workers for local agencies.

Getting a master’s degree in social work has been Cassandra Horsley’s goal since she started working for Child & Adolescent Behavioral Health years ago.

Horsley is a case manager, and ultimately, she wants to work with children who have substance use disorders.

But in addition to a demanding job, Horsley, 32, has three children, and she didn’t know if she could sustain long commutes to class from her home in Pike Township.

“I kept putting it off because I couldn’t find something that worked for me,” she said.

Then Horsley heard of a new master’s of social work program developed by the University of Akron and Stark County Mental Health and Addiction Recovery. She could get her graduate degree by taking classes two nights a week in Canton and continue to work at Child & Adolescent Behavioral Health.

“It was a lot easier for my schedule,” Horsley said. She starts class in August.

Recruiting and retaining

The master’s of social work program is one way StarkMHAR is working with area universities and the Sisters of Charity Foundation to grow and retain the pool of local behavioral-health workers. The career field is a challenging one.

“They’re dealing with folks who have a mental-health or addiction issues, they’re working long, hard hours, they’re dealing with stressful situations,” said StarkMHAR Executive Director John Aller. “We’re not only looking to bring more people into the field, but we’re also working with our agencies on how to retain people once they become employed.”

For behavioral-health agencies, the rules for how Medicaid and Medicare reimburse for services put pressure on the agencies to have workers with the right credentials.

And local efforts to address the opioid epidemic and youth suicide have increased demand for behavioral health services.

For example, Child & Adolescent Behavioral Health has seen a 20% increase in clients, and more demand for school-based counselors, said agency CEO Joe French.

When Child & Adolescent Behavioral Health looks for new hires, it competes for them against mental-health and addiction agencies throughout Northeast Ohio.

“There is great competition,” French said. “Some people are looking for time off, some are looking for the pay, so we’re working very hard to make ourselves as desirable as we possibly can.”

MSW program

The first workforce program to launch brings the University of Akron’s masters of social work program to Canton.

Students in the graduate program will meet twice a week at StarkMHAR’s downtown office and do internships at the local agencies where they already work. Full-time students qualify for a $750 stipend per semester.

Jeannie Cool, StarkMHAR’s manager of programs & evaluation, said the deadline to apply through the University of Akron was June 1.

StarkMHAR is talking with Kent State and Walsh universities to develop a similar program for advanced practice nurses, but is not yet taking applications.

StarkMHAR also is bringing in a consultant to help agencies find the best ways to keep their workers, and plans to help local agencies strengthen their fiscal staff, so they can bill more effectively.

Across the clinical and fiscal projects projects, StarkMHAR is working about a dozen local agencies that receive StarkMHAR funding, Aller said.

The whole workforce initiative is funded by $150,000 from StarkMHAR and another $300,000 from the Sisters of Charity Foundation.

Foundation President Joni Close said the need to recruit and retain workers became apparent through the foundation’s work on initiatives to address opioids and suicide.

“This is a workforce that is underpaid and over-stressed,” Close said. “So, it made sense to really think about how we could attract people and retain people.”