COMMITTEES

The HILT currently has two active committees including, Talent Pipeline & Recruitment and the Behavioral Health Skills Workgroup. The HILT meets quarterly, and these committees meet and have activities in between. In addition to these committees, HILT is actively convening conversations about partnering with Amazon, best practices related to hosting internships, occupation shortage including nursing, medical assistants, as well as dental assistants/hygienists, and other topics of shared interest.

Behavioral Health Skills Workgroup

The Behavioral Health Skills Workgroup focuses on identifying the biggest challenges facing behavioral health providers today, including occupational shortages, representation of black, indigenous, and people of color in clinical settings, retaining good talent, wage and benefit competition, the need for licensed clinical supervisors, and the need to include behavioral health strategies into every aspect on the continuum of care.

The Behavioral Health Skills Workgroup is connected with the Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board’s 2017 Washington State Behavioral Health Workforce Assessment as well as the ongoing stakeholder meetings and feedback sessions focused on developing recommendations to address the five key workforce barriers faced by the industry. The workgroup is led by the Workforce Board in collaboration with the University of Washington Center for Health Workforce Studies.

The workgroup is also in the process of contributing to the ongoing efforts of the Talent Pipeline Committee to ensure the perspective and needs of Behavioral Health providers is considered. The workgroup identified the challenge of recruiting talent, specifically of people from their own community as well as black, indigenous, and people of color, as one of the most pressing challenges for Behavioral Health providers.