UO Ballmer Institute begins training a new generation of behavioral health workers

Visiting the University of Oregon’s Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health Tuesday morning, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden quoted a statistic several times.

“40% of the young people in a recent survey said that they felt an extraordinary sense of helplessness,” Wyden said.

It actually hit a high of 42% in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior survey. The number had been increasing since 2021.

Wyden and U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Beaverton, were in Portland Tuesday to talk about solutions.

“The best way to deal with this is in the schools,” Wyden said.

An increasing number of students need support both in Oregon and nationally, but schools face funding challenges and burnout among staff who provide mental health services.

Efforts have been underway at the University of Oregon to address shortages in student mental health support for more than two years since university leaders announced plans to open a behavioral health institute in Northeast Portland with the help of a $425 million donation from Steve and Connie Ballmer.

It’s the first semester for UO students training to become child behavioral health specialists, as part of a new four-year undergraduate program. The Ballmer Institute, located on the former Concordia University campus, plans to train students to work in schools, where they’ll be tasked with helping identify early behavioral health concerns and intervene with appropriate strategies.

New funds announced Tuesday will help sustain that work, including $1.3 million in federal dollars going straight to the institute, which executive director Kate McLaughlin says will then go directly to school support.

Under an agreement with the Portland and Parkrose school districts, Ballmer students will work in public schools to provide universal screening to figure out what students’ needs are.

“We know that behavior is communication, and our job as adults is to provide students with that support and those relationships,” said Sarah Lamb-Christiansen, principal of Sacramento Elementary in Parkrose, one of the partner schools.

A Ballmer faculty member has been “embedded” at Sacramento for several months, Lamb-Christiansen said.

James Loveland, PPS senior director for student success and health, said having Ballmer faculty working with PPS staff has been helpful.

“There’s enough work for everybody,” said James Loveland, PPS senior director for student success and health.

At the same time, the college students will also receive training from Lines for Life, an Oregon-based nonprofit focused on providing support for people in crisis. Lines for Life runs a national teen helpline that provides peer support for thousands of young people, called YouthLine.

YouthLine deputy director Craig Leets said the college students will receive training and mental health certifications before spending “several months” working YouthLine shifts, building real-time experience students wouldn’t get in a classroom setting.

“It can be a scary thing when a youth comes and says they’re thinking about suicide or self-injury, some mental health professionals don’t get that often,” Leets said.

“They don’t know how to provide that in-the-moment support, and so they’re going to build those skills, they’re going to get that experience serving on our help support and crisis line.”

McLaughlin said there will be a YouthLine center on the Ballmer Institute campus where students will do weekly shifts.

Soon, these university students will graduate and start looking for jobs in cash-strapped school districts.

So how will schools be able to pay for these new professionals?

Money from Medicaid

The Ballmer Institute is working on building a new workforce of staff equipped to help students with behavioral and mental health challenges. School administrators say they’re eager to get the help.

“We talk a lot about, ‘we need support in schools’ — and we do, but it matters the people that we put,” said Parkrose principal Sarah Lamb-Christiansen.

“What’s most helpful is when we have adults that know how to respond and adults that believe in the capability of children.”

Wyden and Bonamici say Medicaid should foot the bill for these services.

“School districts don’t have extra funding around — even if the workforce existed right now, they wouldn’t have the resources to hire them. so it really is taking those unique approaches of preparing the workforce and making sure they get paid when doing the important work,” Bonamici said.

Previously, professionals could only bill Medicaid for mental and behavioral health services provided outside of a school setting. McLaughlin said policy changes helmed by Wyden make it possible to bill Medicaid for those same services provided in a school.

“We know that most kids who need behavioral health services receive them in schools, the majority receive them in schools,” McLaughlin said.

Now, McLaughlin said the state needs to shift its policy to take advantage of the federal funds available. That’s an effort advocates plan to pursue at next year’s legislative session.

“This is not only going to help the graduates of our program by making it easier for schools to hire them because they’re able to bill for the services they’re providing,” McLaughlin said, “but it’s going to help our schools pay for more counselors, social workers, and psychologists to expand the workforce of folks who can meet the needs of our kids in schools.”