UNC Behavioral Health Workforce Research Center
The Coalition for Social Work and Health (CSWH) is a CHaSCI-run coalition that connects professional organizations, practice leaders, researchers, educators, policymakers, and allies to engage in activities that elevate and expand social work’s impact in transforming healthcare, improving health, and advancing health equity. This week, we are highlighting the launch of a new research center by two wonderful CSWH members: the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill (UNC) Behavioral Health Workforce Research Center, led by Brianna Lombardi, PhD, MSW and Lisa de Saxe Zerden, PhD, MSW.
The UNC Behavioral Health Workforce Research Center is truly one-of-a-kind. This recently established center will spend the next two years collecting, analyzing, and reporting on behavioral health workforce data. Gaining greater insight into the wide range of professions that make up the behavioral health workforce, the disparities they face in training and employment, the communities they serve, and the systems they work in is crucial to improving the behavioral healthcare landscape. To learn about this group, the center will undertake twenty different research projects exploring topics ranging from the training of groups such as social workers and certified peer support specialists to variations on the use of different billing codes across professions, and many more (see below for a link to the full list of projects the center is slated to complete).
While there are currently eight other health workforce research centers across the nation, there are two elements that make the UNC Center unique:
it is the only center funded to look specifically at behavioral health workforce data, and
it is the only center led by social workers.
Drs. Lombardi and de Saxe Zerden lead this initiative with both enthusiasm and hope for a stronger, more diverse behavioral health workforce and a more sustainable behavioral health service delivery infrastructure. These thought leaders have many publications on the social service landscape and importance of behavioral health research (see below for more information).
In addition to their academic work through UNC and their leadership with the Behavioral Health Research Center, Drs. Lombardi and de Saxe Zerden are active participants in our policy advocacy through CSWH. Using data to inform policy advocacy is one of the best ways to demonstrate the positive impact that social workers have on communities and care systems, which directly aligns with the UNC Behavioral Workforce Research Center’s work. We could not be more excited to see and hear more about the results of these projects in the years ahead.
Helpful Links:
Learn about the UNC Behavioral Workforce Research Center
See a full list of projects the Center is slated to complete in the next two years
See a list of publications that Dr. Brianna Lombardi has been involved in
See a list of publications that Dr. Lisa de-Saxe Zerden has been involved in