HTuD2 - Striving Toward Fidelity: Developing a Behavioral Health Consultant Onboarding and Competency Program to Increase Workforce Retention and Position Health Centers as an Employer and Provider of Choice

Session Description: Many health centers face challenges recruiting qualified BH providers for integrated primary care settings as there is a paucity of integrated care training and residency programs in many geographic locations. This workshop will describe a quality improvement effort developed as a strategy to support sustainable integrated care at Lakeshore Community Health Care (LCHC), expand service access and patient satisfaction, enhance BHC staff skill consistency and competency, and improve behavioral health workforce retention. Specifically, it will describe how LCHC partnered with a HRSA-funded training and technical assistance provider to develop a Behavioral Health Consultant onboarding and skills competency assessment process. Presenters will describe the approach for developing the onboarding and competency assessment process at Lakeshore, demonstrate the BHC onboarding and competency materials created, outline the implementation plan/process, provide initial rapid cycle Plan-Study-Do-Act assessment of initial implementation efforts, and offer recommendations to PCAs and NTTAs for how they can support health centers in fostering professional competency in the Primary Care Behavioral Health (PCBH) integrated care model.