The behavioral health crisis in California is typically addressed in the context of access to treatment. There’s a need for therapists, social workers, crisis counselors, addiction specialists, school-based support, community care teams, and case managers. But in many areas of the state, the demand is outpacing the workforce. The issue isn’t just that Californians need more care. California needs more trained professionals to provide that care.
This means that behavioral health is an education access question as well as a health care question. An expensive, geographically restricted, inflexible, or working-adult-unfriendly pathway into the profession will result in a too-narrow workforce pipeline. California is facing a statewide care crisis and a small number of individuals can’t afford to become trained for the jobs that are needed.
For instance, California MSW online programs have been part of the conversation about flexible options for people pursuing a career in social work, as they can make graduate social work education more accessible without requiring students to relocate, leave their jobs, or live near a university campus.
The Workforce Shortage Starts Before the Job Market
One of the issues people talk about when referring to a shortage in behavioral health is vacancies. Clinics simply can’t afford to employ enough licensed professionals. There is a lack of counselors and social workers in schools. Competition for staff among county agencies. Workers leave nonprofit organizations due to burnout or better compensation elsewhere.
But the shortage starts long before. It starts the moment prospective social workers consider whether they can even go to graduate school. While a person can have the empathy, experience and local knowledge to be an excellent clinician or community social worker, this may be a practical impediment. The tuition charges could be too steep. Distance may be a problem for classes. Work schedules may not be workable for a traditional program. Moving may not be an option due to family responsibilities.
Such barriers are important because social work relies on individuals who have a working knowledge of the communities they serve. California requires professionals who are familiar with local languages, cultural backgrounds, housing issues, school systems, immigration issues, rural isolation, and urban inequality. The state forfeits talent if it does not provide education opportunities for those individuals.
Geography Shapes Who Gets to Train
Access to education is particularly crucial in California and has become a nationwide political issue, given the state’s vast population. The state is not a single market. The choices available to a student in the Los Angeles area differ from those in the Central Valley, Inland Empire, North Coast, or Sierra. The availability of university access, field placements, transport, broadband, and employer networks varies significantly.
Students with flexible schedules and those who live close to campus can be successful with traditional campus-based programs. These are more difficult for those in less-served areas. This presents a significant challenge: the communities most in need of behavioral health professionals are often the ones where access to training pathways is more difficult.
While online and hybrid learning don’t address all problems, they can help overcome the distance hurdle. They provide students with a way to complete academic coursework while gaining practicum experience in a nearby area. This is important because training in the region might encourage students to stay there after graduation.
Working Adults Are Central to the Solution
The future behavioral health workforce will not simply comprise full-time students who transition from undergraduate to graduate programs. But California also needs mid-career adults. These are individuals currently employed in the school, hospital, foster care, homelessness, youth, veterans, substance use treatment, public agency and nonprofit settings.
Many of them already know the day-to-day life of care work. They do not have the graduate credential and supervised training that is required for higher-level social work positions. Flexibility in education is no luxury for this group. It’s the difference between entering the profession and staying where they are.
A fixed program schedule may exclude the type of students California needs. The profession may be more accessible through the use of evening classes, distance education, part-time arrangements and local practicum arrangements. During a shortage of skilled workers, that flexibility is a public health policy.
Cost Remains a Major Barrier
Postgraduate training is not necessarily a cheap undertaking and the social work profession does not necessarily pay high wages in comparison to other professions. This presents a challenging problem. While California needs more social workers, many prospective students might be hesitant to incur the cost of a degree in a field that can be emotionally demanding, and some positions pay little.
That’s where scholarships, employer tuition assistance, paid internships, loan repayment programs and public workforce funding come in. Flexibility is beneficial, but affordability is key to ensuring that many students can enroll and complete their programs.
The state’s behavioral health objectives will be less likely to be achieved if the cost of a social worker remains out of alignment with his or her salary after graduation. There must be financial access to education, not just digital access.
Mental Health Reform Needs an Education Strategy
California has been a strong investor in behavioral health reform, crisis response, youth mental health, housing-linked care, and community-based services. However, policy ambition is reliant on people. For each new program, there must be trained professionals to implement it.
This is why access to education must be a part of the behavioral health conversation. Growth in services without a parallel growth in training pathways risks systems that are “designed for training but not staffed for training.
More graduates are not necessarily the answer. To expand the pathway to the profession to enable students from across the country, various income groups, cultures and career stages to be involved. The behavioral health crisis in California cannot be addressed exclusively in clinics, schools and county offices. It also needs to be addressed in classrooms, practicum placements, admissions policies, tuition structures, online learning environments and more.
In the interest of providing care to more people, the state must make social work education accessible to a wider population.