VCU professor awarded two grants totaling $3.6M to help build the behavioral health workforce

By Haley Tenore

With the pandemic's shadow continuing to hang over mental health for all ages, a Virginia Commonwealth University psychology program will use two recent federal grants to expand pro bono care while developing a new generation of practitioners.

Heather Jones, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology, co-directs the Primary Care Psychology Training Collaborative, an initiative of the Department of Psychology within VCU's College of Humanities and Sciences. In June, she received two federal grants from the Health Resources and Services Administration, totaling $3.6 million, to increase the behavioral health workforce. The grants are supported at VCU by both the College of Humanities and Sciences and the VCU Institute for Women's Health, for which Jones is director of trainee development. Partnering VCU units on these interprofessional training grants include the Department of Pediatrics, the Department of Family Medicine, the Department of Internal Medicine and the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation in the School of Medicine, the Department of Rehabilitation Counseling in the College of Health Professions and the School of Education.

"Even before the pandemic, most children, adolescents and adults with mental health concerns never received treatment," Jones said. "Since the pandemic, the level of unmet mental health needs has risen. Mental health treatment can be expensive and hard to find. We need more professionals trained to provide behavioral/mental health care."

The PCPTC, which was established in 2008, has previously earned funding from the HRSA and other sources, with its latest two grants marking a record amount of funding for the program. Jones said the new funding will increase access to pro bono mental health care for Central Virginians, through the collaborative's partnering clinics at VCU and in the broader community.

The grants also will support more than 50 graduate students as they prepare to enter the field of behavioral health, with focus areas including substance use treatment, trauma-informed care, rural mental health and youth mental health. The master's and Ph.D. students, who are studying clinical psychology, counseling psychology, school counseling and rehabilitation counseling, train at 12 clinics across Central Virginia.

"Graduate students who participate in PCPTC have told us that it opens up their job possibilities by introducing many of them to collaborating with medical teams, and they find it gives them an advantage going into internship or residency interviews," Jones said.

The collaborative has supported individuals in need who may be contending with anxiety, depression, substance use and trauma, as well as behavioral or interpersonal problems. Through its model of integrated behavioral health primary care, a graduate student clinician becomes part of a patient's primary medical team.

The VCU PCPTC has been increasing the behavioral health workforce since it was created in 2010 by psychology professor and collaborative co-director Bruce Rybarczyk, Ph.D.

Jones credits Rybarczyk with paving the way for collaborative's community partnerships, including with Crossover Healthcare Ministry and Health Brigade in addition to units within VCU. He also recruited graduate students and faculty - including Jones, who has a background in pediatric and maternal mental health - who have helped expand the PCPTC's impact.