December 10, 2024
Accelerating growth in the mental health care workforce
Actions policymakers can take to grow and diversify the mental health care workforce.
Removing barriers to becoming a mental health professional is key.
Millions of Americans struggle to access mental health care due to a shortage of trained professionals nationwide. Currently, over 1 in 3 people live in areas without enough mental health providers to meet the need.
Kaiser Permanente is working to change this. Through programs like our Mental Health Workforce Accelerator, we’re growing and diversifying the mental health workforce by removing financial and scheduling barriers that keep many people from entering the field.
The Mental Health Workforce Accelerator is already making an impact. But to truly solve the national shortage, we need public policies that expand these efforts and remove barriers.
Current barriers
As the need for mental health care rises, several barriers make it hard to grow the workforce, increase access, and provide care:
- Burdensome licensing standards: Aspiring mental health professionals must complete many supervised work hours to get licensed. In fact, some states require over 4,000 hours. That amounts to 2 years of full-time work. These hours are often unpaid. This can create financial strain and prevent new professionals from entering the field.
- Access to supervision: In rural and underserved areas, there are often not enough qualified supervisors. This slows down the licensure process for people who are eager to work in the mental health field.
- Workforce diversity: There is a strong need for a diverse and multilingual workforce that can better understand and serve people from different backgrounds.
A model for growth
Kaiser Permanente’s Mental Health Workforce Accelerator gives policymakers a model for how to grow the workforce. It’s making a difference by:
- Providing financial support and supervision: The accelerator offers job placements and stipends. This helps associates complete required supervised work hours without financial strain.
- Expanding access to supervision: Kaiser Permanente partners with Motivo, the largest virtual supervision platform. The partnership connects candidates with supervisors online. This removes geographic barriers and makes it easier to meet licensure requirements.
- Enhancing workforce diversity: The accelerator focuses on recruiting and training professionals from diverse backgrounds. This helps ensure that more communities receive culturally responsive care.
Following its success in Colorado and Georgia, the accelerator expanded to Southern California and Washington in 2024. It will also grow to include Hawaii in 2025.
Policy recommendations to grow the workforce
We recommend the following public policy changes to address the nation’s shortage of mental health care professionals.
- Increase funding for workforce development. Provide federal and state funding for training and supervision programs. This is crucial for helping more people enter the field and complete licensure.
- Streamline supervision requirements. Accelerate the timeline for training prior to licensure, create reasonable supervisor ratio requirements, and make the requirements consistent across states. Focus on making training practical and relevant to ensure new professionals can get licensed more easily and affordably.
- Support virtual supervision. Reduce geographic and financial barriers by allowing virtual supervision. This will make it easier for people in a variety of locations to get licensed.
- Incentivize community-based placements. Offer financial incentives to professionals who work in underserved communities. This will help ensure care reaches people who need it most.
If we make these changes, we can build a stronger, more diverse mental health workforce.
