An almost $1.8 million federal grant awarded to the University of Texas at Austin will help train more people how to provide mental health care in Travis County.
The grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration will give UT $440,000 a year for four years to the Integrated Behavioral Health Scholars program, which is a collaboration of Dell Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry, Steve Hicks School of Social Work, School of Nursing, and College of Education’s Department of Educational Psychology.
Dell Medical School inaugural student, David Woerner checks out a new classroom at the newly opened Dell Medical Health Learning Center in 2016. More UT students will get hands-on training in mental health work because of an almost $1.8 million federal grant. Jessalyn Tamez / AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
The grant will fund the training of 84 students and residents in social work, nursing, psychology, psychiatry and other mental health professions. The students will get training at Integral Care clinical sites. Integral Care, which handles mental health care in Travis County, will supervise and guide the students and residents.
“The people of Travis County deserve the best mental health care in the world,” said Dr. Steve Strakowski, chair of the psychiatry department at Dell Medical School, in a press release. “Providing that care requires that the university train the best psychiatrists and therapists in the world and assure that they can take care of people regardless of their culture or the language they speak. With this grant, we can create unique programs that give world-class training to local providers.”
The psychiatry department also received a grant from the Hogg Foundation to help the university explore training models across disciplines.
