The University of Nebraska Medical Center opened its sixth Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska Friday in Lincoln.
Five other sites have opened in other regions of the state, starting with the first BHECN launched in partnership with the University of Nebraska-Kearney in 2015. BHECN Director Marley Doyle said finally reaching all six behavioral health regions in the state is exciting.
“Each of our geographic regions across the state is wonderfully unique, and we are able to have sites that can meet those unique needs of each of the regions,” Doyle said. “By having a presence, we believe that our ability to influence workforce development and build the behavioral health careers pathway is much stronger with all six of the sites in place.”
Similar to other locations, like the one in North Platte that opened in December, BHECN Southeast will partner with surrounding educational institutions to build pathways to get more students interested in behavioral health careers, said co-director Kimberly Clawson.
“We have a lot of access to a lot of really unique types of mental health care in that region, and a lot of mental health care that really needs to be supported,” Clawson said.
BHECN supports students and professionals interested in entering the behavioral health workforce or continuing their education in the career field. Clawson and co-director Wendy Baumeister will work with the many colleges and universities in the area, as well as partners in the public sector and correctional services to identify specific workforce needs.
“We are looking at filling some of the public sector needs and some of the correctional needs, as well as just any population in the southeast that is really underserved right now in mental health, and hoping to stimulate interest in going into treatment of those populations with the variety and the number of students in the region,” Clawson said.
Even though each behavioral health region now has a local BHECN location, Doyle said the work won’t stop there. Now, her focus will be on creating a network of behavioral health care providers to strengthen the workforce.
“By strengthening all these relationships and networks, we're able to pull in more stakeholders to be able to amplify the work and not duplicate it," Doyle said.