UMass Chan Medical School's Tan Chingfen School of Nursing is implementing a new statewide fellowship program to expand the pipeline of psychiatric mental health nurses entering the community health center workforce.
“What we are trying to do is increase the capacity of psychiatric mental health nurses within community health centers,” said Dr. Mechelle Plasse, APRN, assistant professor of nursing and director of the mental health nursing program. “Specialist nurses can be integrated into health center teams to increase access to general medical and psychiatric mental health care at a local level.”
The Massachusetts Department of Health and Human Services awarded the Tan Ching-Feng School of Nursing an $11.6 million, four-year grant to create the fellowship, with funding received from the U.S. Treasury's Financial Recovery Fund. Address the growing demand for psychiatric and mental health services in the state. Help fill gaps in the workforce. and resume training, education, and licensure of new employees in the state's health and human services services, which were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Specialist nurses can be integrated into health center teams to increase access to general medical and psychiatric mental health care at a local level.”
Massachusetts has more than 200 community health centers and hospital-accredited centers, providing care for more than 1 million patients, the majority of whom are low-income and historically underrepresented. This is where the population comes from. The goal of the fellowship program is to increase the community health center psychiatric mental health nurse talent pipeline and recruit at least one graduate-level fellow and two student fellows to at least 25 community health centers in one year. By increasing the diversity of the workforce. A period of 4 years. The first cohort has already begun, and the second cohort is currently accepting applications for health centers and fellows.
“This fellowship is open to all community health centers in the state, not just hospital-accredited health centers, and we partnered with the Massachusetts Federation of Community Health Centers to partner with all health centers in the state to We are reaching out to share this fellowship program with them,” Liang said. Winchester, MS, RN, Senior Project Manager.
The Tan Chingfen School of Nursing designed the model and planned the program in collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services Administration and the Massachusetts Federation of Community Health Centers. Massachusetts Chan's Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Program is one of her nine programs in the state.
In addition to facilitated clinical experiences, the Tan Qingfeng School of Nursing offers a variety of educational experiences, including didactics on topics related to practice in community health settings, an intensive solution for opioid and safe prescribing training, and related online self-directed courses. is provided to Fellows weekly. Towards integrated primary care. Fellows also have access to ongoing mentoring, professional development, and clinical support through case discussions and clinical supervision.
Eligible fellows include students who are registered nurses in the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program and those who have already completed or have recently been hired into the Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner program within 18 months of the start of the fellowship program. Graduates include advanced practice nurses. Psychiatric mental health nurse at a health center.
Graduate student fellows engage in 12 months of service, and student fellows participate in semester-long placements. Funded community health centers ensure fellows benefit from mentoring and learning opportunities and team-based care.
For more information about the fellowship, please visit the program website.
