Task force set to address mental health for youth and young adults
On August 14, leaders from Cuyahoga County, the City of Cleveland and Ohio Means Jobs announced a joint task force to increase mental health care for youth and young adults. The aim is to bring together stakeholders and leaders in the mental health community to address the workforce shortages of mental health providers across a variety of care settings.
NEOMED will have an important seat on the table for the task force. The Department of Psychiatry has a history of developing and sharing best practices for mental health and behavioral health providers. The University has been working on an innovative solution for this very issue – creating a new physician extender training pathway, similar to physician assistants, but with an exclusive focus on mental health and substance use disorders.
“While we have expertise to share, they will also be able to help support NEOMED as we launch the certified mental health assistant program and begin to educate mental health professionals,” said Janet Coon, special assistant to the president, who will play a key role in the University’s participation in the task force. “We are addressing the needs of the mental health workforce that will benefit our clinical partners.”
This is a much-needed endeavor, according to Randy Welton, M.D., Margaret Clark Morgan Endowed Chair and professor of psychiatry. Dr. Welton shared data to shed light on the pressing need of mental health professionals – by 2030, Ohio will only have 52% of necessary psychiatrists according to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The HRSA estimates Ohio will need 2,020 psychiatrists, but will have only 1,060 by 230 – and this estimate came before an abundance of retirements during the COVID pandemic. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Ohio only had 640 active psychiatrists as of May 2021.
“My hope for the task force is that they reach out to involve community members, community leaders, faith leaders, schools, and the health care system in addressing this large and growing problem, and that they come together to consider new approaches to this problem,” Dr. Welton said. “The familiar ways of addressing mental illness are clearly not working.”