$1.9 Million HRSA Grant Aims To Enhance Rural Social Work Training

The “Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training for Professionals” grant is intended to enhance services to rural and at-risk populations.

San Marcos – The School of Social Work at Texas State University has been awarded a four-year, $1.9 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The “Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training for Professionals” grant is intended to enhance services to rural and at-risk populations.

The School of Social Work will accomplish this by increasing the number of social workers prepared to provide trauma-informed, culturally sensitive, evidence-based behavioral health prevention and intervention practices at schools, hospitals, clinics and homeless-serving agency settings, said Amy Benton, associate professor in the School of Social Work.

The cornerstone of the project is the enhanced, integrated training and stipend-supported final field opportunity for 30 Masters in Social Work students per project year. 

The project will include online learning modules and in-person trainings/workshops on a variety of topics related to behavioral health issues across the lifespan in the semester prior to and during final field placement.

Expanded training prior to the students’ entry into their field placement will result in students who are better able to implement evidence-based practices.

The project will utilize existing partners to explore opportunities for increasing the number of rural-based field placements, and offer interdisciplinary trainings/workshops from university and community-based experts that are open to participating students, field agency staff and university faculty.

About Texas State University

Founded in 1899, Texas State University is among the largest universities in Texas with an enrollment of 38,694 students on campuses in San Marcos and Round Rock. Texas State’s 181,000-plus alumni are a powerful force in serving the economic workforce needs of Texas and throughout the world. Designated an Emerging Research University by the State of Texas, Texas State is classified under “Doctoral Universities: Higher Research Activity,” the second-highest designation for research institutions under the Carnegie classification system.