New HRSA Grants Provide Opportunities for Chatham Grad Psych and OTD Students
Chatham University is proud to announce it was recently awarded two grants from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) which will allow occupational therapy and psychology students experience working in high-need, high-demand areas.
The grants will fund the Destigmatizing Relapse with Evidence-based Approaches Multidimensionally (DREAM) and Healthcare Alliance Promoting Pittsburgh Youth 2 (HAPPY 2) projects.
Students in the Doctor of Psychology in Counseling Psychology (PsyD) program are eligible to apply for the DREAM project, while the HAPPY 2 project is accepting Master of Science in Counseling Psychology (MSCP) and Doctor of Occupational Therapy (OTD) students.
Additionally, master-level students in the programs will receive a stipend of $25,000, while doctoral students will receive $32,500, for living costs associated with their fellowship and education.
Along with providing stipends for students, the grants will also enable Chatham to establish partnerships with not only clinical training sites but other local HRSA grantees, to include Master of Social Work programs at Carlow University and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as University of Pittsburgh’s Psychiatry Residency Training program. This collaboration will allow all involved to combine resources and enhance interprofessional training opportunities.
This grant, totaling $1.2 million over three years, is focused on training 21 PsyD students to provide behavioral health services, to include trauma informed care and substance use disorder prevention and treatment in high-need, high-demand areas. The goal is to increase the number of well-trained, culturally competent health service psychology professionals who are both prepared to address the needs of the communities they serve and are committed to working in high-need, high-demand areas after graduation. The project will prepare trainees for the community-based primary care settings they will serve in. The DREAM project ends in June 2028.
The HAPPY2 project is a $2.4 million grant over four years. It aims to train 44 students to increase the supply of behavioral health professionals who are trained to provide integrated behavioral health care and are committed to working in high-need, high-demand areas. The grant will train OTD, MSCP, and PsyD students. The project focuses on understanding the needs of children, adolescents and young adults at risk for trauma and behavioral health disorders and will stress interprofessional team-based models of care, integrating behavioral health training in primary care settings as well as training and supporting supervisors. The HAPPY 2 project ends in June 2029.
DREAM and HAPPY 2 are both led by Jennifer Q. Morse, Ph.D., professor of counseling psychology, and will continue to grow Chatham’s efforts to train a skilled behavioral health workforce to address critical shortages in the region.
These new awards build upon the success of previous Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training (BHWET) grants. Chatham’s previous BHWET projects have successfully trained 132 behavioral healthcare providers, including students in MSCP, PsyD, and OT programs. In total, 62% of Chatham’s BHWET trainees now work in medically underserved communities or high-need, high-demand areas, and program graduates have a 90% job placement rate.
These grants are supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of financial assistance awards totaling $3,749,999.98 with 100 percent funded by HRSA/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, HRSA/HHS or the U.S. Government.