Training for Transitions: Preparedness for Behavioral Health Social Workers

Background and Purpose: Adolescents and transition-age youth in South Carolina are less likely to seek or receive treatment for alcohol use, substance abuse disorders and mental health needs. Confounding these issues is a lack of qualified behavioral health professionals to address such needs. Together, these social problems require enhanced training of social work students to work on interdisciplinary teams and learn behavioral health skills and service delivery for at-risk youth. In response to these phenomenon, the University of South Carolina College of Social Work implemented a HRSA-funded training program to provide specialized training to advanced level MSW students who plan a behavioral health career working with at-risk youth and their families. The objectives of this study were to assess MSW student trainees’ knowledge about behavioral health and interdisciplinary team skills. These objectives will help answer the research questions: “Does an intensive and specialized MSW student training program focused on building behavioral health competencies to better address at-risk needs and services: a. improve students’ interdisciplinary team skills, and b. improve students’ behavioral health competencies?”

Methods: All MSW student trainees participated in an evidence-based didactic training (integrative seminar) and experiential training opportunities in specialized behavioral health field placements. Students completed pre- and post-tests assessing their behavioral health competencies and team skills. As chosen by our community advisory committee, the measures used for this study included: Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Health Care Teams Scale; Team Skills Scale; an Inventory of Behavioral Health Competences created for this project (based on SAMHSA-HRSA Center for Integrated Care for Integrated Health Solutions’ Core Competencies for Integrated Behavioral Health & Primary Care). Paired t-tests were conducted of the pre- and post-measurements of the students.

 

Results:  Students’ mean scores on the Attitudes Towards Interprofessional Health Care Teams Scale increased from 57.2 (SD 6.42) to 64.8 (SD 3.49). This result is approaching significance t(4)=-2.58, p=.061. All of the students’ scores increased on the Team Skills Scale, suggesting that students’ perceptions of interprofessional team work and attitudes about team care teams improved after completing the training. Combined, the students’ mean scores on the Attitudes Toward Interprofessional Health Care Teams scale significantly increased from 65.67 (SD 5.50) to 76.33 (SD 8.55), t(5)=-3.19, p=.024. Also, all of the students’ scores increased on the Inventory of Behavioral Health Competencies, suggesting that such competencies improved across the course of the training. Combined, the students’ mean scores on this scale significantly increased from 153.00 (SD 17.97) to 193.17 (SD 14.63), t(5)=-9.11, p=.000.

 

Conclusions and Implications: This HRSA-funded training initiative improved all of the MSW students’ team skills and attitudes, and also significantly enhanced their behavioral health competencies. This program, guided by an advisory council of interprofessional community leaders and experts in the area of behavioral health in SC, created new behavioral health field placements that focus on developing a skill set for intervention and prevention with at-risk youth. Our curriculum can be used as a model for social work training to help address the critical behavioral health needs of at-risk and transition age youth across the country.