The fellowship is helping meet critical healthcare needs while also providing students with financial support. Its fellows, who are pursuing the two-year, campus-based Masters in Social Work (MSW), receive a basic income; experience at community-based organizations; and specialized training on topics that prepare them to join an effective and ethical behavioral health workforce.
In return, each fellow pledges to work in underserved rural and Tribal behavioral health settings during their fellowship and for two years after graduation. Current fellows work at Two Feathers Native American Family Services, Southern Humboldt Family Resource Center, the Northern California Indian Development Council, United Indian Health Services Potawot Health Village, and more.
The program aims to transform behavioral health ecosystems. It is doing so by addressing structural inequality, increasing graduation rates, and improving the availability and quality of care amid a statewide shortage of mental health and substance use disorder professionals.
“A big part of this is getting more people into the public behavioral health workforce who represent the cultural and linguistic diversity of people receiving services,” says Ronnie Swartz, Social Work professor and behavioral health workforce development coordinator.
Another key part of the fellowship is supporting people with lived experience—those who themselves have been consumers of public behavioral health services or have family members who have been consumers—to join the public behavioral health workforce, says Swartz.
Xavion Bond (Journalism, ‘14) has lived experience and a passion for helping underserved communities.
Bond decided to pursue his MSW after a family member experienced a mental health crisis. The experience opened his eyes to the critical need for diversity in behavioral health.
“I was trying to get a welfare check; I didn’t want to call the police because that doesn't always end well for Black people in particular,” he adds.
He knew his situation wasn’t uncommon. It was then he decided to go into behavioral health and share the knowledge he learns with other marginalized people to allow them to start healing their own communities, he says.
Bond is in his first year of the MSW, and is one of eight program fellows. He currently works at the Southern Humboldt Family Resource Center in Redway.
Participation in the fellowship shows his commitment to the community, and allows him to help those who need it most. Among the most impactful things he’s learned in the program so far are how to incorporate Indigenous knowledge in behavioral health, and how to practice with cultural humility.
While Bond was driven to pursue his MSW, he says it would not have been possible without the funds he receives from the fellowship.
That support is made possible through grants from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information, the U.S. Department of Education, and the California Social Work Education Center. These grants make it possible to provide fellows with guaranteed basic income throughout their MSW.
Students often work multiple jobs while pursuing their degrees. That is a barrier for students to complete behavioral health programs, says Swartz. Providing a guaranteed basic income allows fellows to focus on their studies, their families, their practicum placements, and their communities, he adds.
The fellowship is not the only program that provides financial support for Social Work students. In fact, the department currently offers nearly all of its students some sort of support, says Jamie Jensen, department chair. This includes behavioral health workforce development, education, and training programs like the Mentored Internship Program, School-Based Mental Health Stipend program, and the Rural and Tribal Substance Use Disorder Earn & Learn Program. The department is also providing support for graduates as they seek professional licensure.
For more information about the Rural and Tribal Behavioral Health MSW Fellowship, or other programs, visit socialwork.humboldt.edu.