Behavioral health workforce education and training program for paraprofessionals - the accredited "rochester behavioral health training program" in rochester new york proposes to use this hrsa bhwet…

Behavioral health workforce education and training program for paraprofessionals - the accredited "rochester behavioral health training program" in rochester new york proposes to use this hrsa bhwet "paraprofessional training grant" mechanism to increase the number of paraprossional students trained to provide integrated, interdisciplinary team based care, community responsive health services, trauma informed care, screening and interventions to substance use disorders (SUDS), trauma and CO-occurring behavioral health related problems among youth, children and emerging adults in high need, high demand areas within monroe county, located in upstate new york. Monroe county is a rural area facing considerable behavioral health and chemical dependency workforce challenges to attract paraprofessionals to work with youth, adolescents, emerging adults and their families. The training program is one of the main key resources in the area both for providing integration of care models, addiction and behavioral healthcare to our community as well as providing high quality interdisciplinary training to students in paraprofessional programs and learning environments. If funded, the proposed project will implement and train paraprofessional students majoring in behavioral health, addiction and/or alcohol and drug counseling to target integration of care, for behavioral health and substance use prevention and treatment. Specifically, funding will be used to train 40 students (20 level 1 and 20 level 2) across 4 years to become certified alcohol and substance use counselors (CASAC) at a large community center behavioral health clinic (CCBHC) during the grant period. Grant funding will allow for interdisciplinary training in behavioral health, trauma and other substance use disorders (SUD), as well as the increased provision of training in integration of care, multi-disciplinary teach approaches, provider resiliency, lived experiences of family didadic exposure and the use of evidence based digital therapies/digital tools and tele-behavioral health. The specific, measurable objectives associated with the proposed project are as follows: 1) between september 1, 2025 and august 30, 2029, a total of 40 paraprofessional students will be trained to be CASAC trained to focus on integration of care, trauma centered care, CO-occurring SUDS and mental health, provider resiliency with youth, adolescent and emerging adult populations. The training will occur to enhance behavioral health, OUD/SUD and mental health services for high demand, youth communities in need; 2) between september 1, 2025 and august 30, 2029, the program will implement a comprehensive training curriculum with annual training activities and rotations at strong recovery, a consortium clinical site; 3) by august 30, 2029, the program will have improved its training of paraprofessional CASAC students in integration of care, trauma informed care, behavioral health and OUD/SUD through curriculum development, didactics, experiential field placements (level 1 and level 2=apprenticeship training) designed to assess and provide evidence based care among youth populations ; 4) by august 2029, the local healthcare workforce will be expanded and enhanced through the retention of at least 60% of CASAC trainees to this regional of upstate NY. All project activities have been developed with an emphasis on training students to provide trauma informed, telebehavioral health and evidence based care for high demand, high need populations in this community. Our rochester behavioral healthtraining community consortium meets the criteria for and formally requests continued funding preference based on qualification 1.