The Time Is Now to Talk Workforce Development

By Nicholas Covino, PsyD, guest contributor

It doesn’t matter where you look in mental health service, there's a critical shortage of providers. A recent study at Harvard University found of 900 phone calls made trying to get an appointment with a mental health counselor, just 17 percent were successful. Think about that—153 calls found help, while 747 did not. And it’s not as if this shortage is anything new—Surgeon General David Satcher first sounded the alarm in 2000 when he said we have many techniques and tools to treat mental health, we just don’t have enough professionals.

And yet little has changed in the past 17 years. So, what can we do? Here are some solutions to attract and retain our mental health professionals:

1. Because the shortage will be so acute in the next several years, scholarships are important along with loan forgiveness. We need to find a way to turn the heads of young people towards this field. Being able to avoid a mountain a debt when they complete their degree is a key step.
2. We need to boost the pay. Substance abuse counselors earn about $40,000 a year. It’s not a living wage even for people who are highly motivated. The insurance carriers, along with the state and federal governments, need to do their part around improving the reimbursement so these people can make a living doing the work. The people in the field are highly dedicated and highly motivated—they are the saints of the earth—but 20 percent of them turn over every year partly because of the low pay.
3. We need to provide continuing professional education and support for counselors to not only keep their skills sharp, but to keep them interested and engaged.

Given the low level of people of color in this field, the steps above would go a long way in attracting more people from racial and culturally diverse backgrounds or who might service these underserved communities.

Serving as a backdrop to this troubling workforce trend is the fact that we’re graying out; the average age of a psychologist is late 50’s while that of a psychiatrist is late 60's. We’re not replacing ourselves in a strong or sustainable way.

People find mental health services very attractive but the topic of workforce development is far less interesting or appealing. If we don’t make a concerted effort to build this workforce, we may have a repeat of what occurred not long ago when the Veteran’s Administration decided to hire more counselors. Because the V.A. was offering higher salaries for higher profile jobs, many mental health professionals from community centers flocked there, leaving those centers—and their patients—in the lurch.

The problem is only getting worse. Unless we devote the necessary attention and resources to this topic, the critical shortage of mental health counselors will become a crisis. By then, it may be too big of a hole to dig ourselves out of.

Nicholas Covino is the President of William James College, the largest graduate school of psychology in New England.