The crisis in access to behavioral health care – encompassing both mental health and substance use disorder conditions – has been well documented in Massachusetts as well as in other parts of the country. An important cause of the behavioral health access crisis is workforce shortages. The Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation recently released the report, Behavioral Health Professional Licensure in Massachusetts: Existing Barriers and Opportunities to Advance Diversity in the Workforce.
This report documents the licensing requirements for behavioral health providers in Massachusetts (specifically mental health counselors, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers), describes the barriers to licensure for clinicians from underrepresented populations, and outlines potential solutions to these barriers. A key objective in this project was to hear directly from those populations as to specific challenges they have experienced in the path to licensure and the process of maintaining licensure and to identify potential solutions to address these challenges. While many of the identified solutions would benefit all individuals navigating the licensure process, given the exacerbated challenges often faced by marginalized populations, reducing these barriers and fostering an equitable and inclusive licensure process holds promise to grow and diversify the behavioral health workforce in Massachusetts.