The University of Nebraska Medical Center opened its fifth Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska location (BHECN) last week in North Platte.
Organizers said it will help grow the behavioral health workforce for that region of the state by working with students at Mid-Plains Community College and educators at Great Plains Health.
Jody Tomanek, vice president of academic affairs at MPCC and BHECN southwest co-director, said it’s meaningful for UNMC to partner with a community college. Before the newest BHECN site in North Platte, the nearest locations were in Kearney and Chadron, a gap of more than 300 miles.
“It means a lot, I think, to our community that they're willing to invest their time and their help and their resources to help provide that in our area,” Tomanek said.
UNMC typically partners with four-year institutions in the community for BHECN locations. In Kearney, students are connected through UNK. In Chadron, students are connected through Chadron State College.
So, when BHECN director Marley Doyle and other leaders decided to open a fifth site in North Platte, they knew they had to shift to working with a new kind of higher education.
Doyle said the goal of the partnership is to strengthen the current nursing program at MPCC and increase the behavioral health curriculum in that program. That means getting more experience for nursing students and working with providers in the area, like those at Great Plains Health, to ensure students are meeting their educational needs.
“We feel it's really important to get students from the area to go into behavioral health careers,” Doyle said. “We also believe that we need more training experiences in rural communities, because if they aren't able to train in the area, then the likelihood that they're going to return diminishes.”
Tomanek is enthusiastic about the opportunities this will provide students at MPCC, and said it might even help high school students learn more about what a career in behavioral health can look like, whether that’s the business side of running their own private practice or the clinical side of care.
“In that service area…there's not really a four-year institution that is kind of housed in those parameters,” Tomanek said. “So, I think what's exciting for us is, whether it's our traditional college students or maybe even high school students that want to start with us and then maybe get into behavioral health, we can help create that pathway for them.”
Doyle said UNMC plans to open a sixth BHECN site early next year. It will collaborate with educators at Lincoln Regional Center to help connect students to work in the public sector.