Name
Expanding the Behavioral Health Workforce: Scalable Team-Based Strategies for Integrated Care
Description

The United States faces a severe behavioral health workforce shortage that limits timely access to care, including in integrated behavioral health settings. While traditional strategies focus on expanding the pipeline of licensed clinicians, these approaches take years to impact workforce supply. This session highlights emerging workforce innovations that expand access now by equipping individuals without clinical licensure to deliver evidence-based behavioral health services within integrated care teams. Drawing from a national white paper and real-world implementation examples, panelists will describe scalable models including bachelor’s-level behavioral health care managers in the Collaborative Care Model, community health workers and peer specialists delivering structured behavioral interventions, and competency-based workforce training pathways. Attendees will learn practical strategies for expanding behavioral health capacity while maintaining quality, fidelity, and team-based care.

Speakers
Katie Steele, PhD
Johnathan Giles, LCMHC
Jessica Lyons, MS, LMFT
Stephen Warnick, Jr, MD
Co-Authors
Clare McNutt, PA-C
Content Level
Intermediate
Tags
Team-based care, Training/Supervision, Workforce development
Session Type
Concurrent
Objective 1
Describe emerging workforce models that expand behavioral health capacity by integrating providers without clinical licensure into team-based care.
Objective 2
Explain how competency-based training, supervision, and clearly defined scopes of practice support the safe and effective use of bachelor’s-level staff, community health workers, and peer specialists in integrated care settings.
Objective 3
Identify practical strategies organizations can use to implement scalable workforce pathways within integrated behavioral health settings.
Content Reference 1

National Center for Health Workforce Analysis (2025). State of the U.S. health care workforce, 2025. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration. https://bhw.hrsa.gov/sites/default/files/bureau-health-workforce/data-research/State-of-US-Health-Care-Workforce-2025.pdf

Content Reference 2

Anderson, A., Eisenberg, M. D., Kennedy-Hendricks, A., Castrucci, B. C., Galea, S., & Ettman, C. K. (2025). Mental health crises and help-seeking among US adults in 2024-2025. Health Affairs Scholar, 3(9). https://doi.org/10.1093/haschl/qxaf166

Content Reference 3

National Conference of State Legislatures. (2024, June). Behavioral health workforce shortages and state resource systems [Report]. https://documents.ncsl.org/wwwncsl/Labor/Workforce-Shortages-State-Resource-Systems.pdf.

Content Reference 4

Patena, J., Adenikinju, D., Lanka, P., Hameed, T., Kulkarni, S., Osei-Tutu, N., Zuniga, S., Ruan, C., Shenoy, S., Thakkar, D., Noble, E., Angulo, B., Vieira, D., Gyamfi, J., & Peprah, E. (2025). Evaluating implementation research outcomes for a task-sharing mental health intervention: A systematic review of the Friendship Bench. Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health, 12, e65. https://doi.org/10.1017/gmh.2025.10025

Content Reference 5

Patel, V., Weiss, H. A., Chowdhary, N., Naik, S., Pednekar, S., Chatterjee, S., Bhat, B., Araya, R., King, M., Simon, G., Verdeli, H., & Kirkwood, B. R. (2011). Lay health worker led intervention for depressive and anxiety disorders in India: Impact on clinical and disability outcomes over 12 months. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 199(6), 459-466. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.bp.111.092155