Contact: Bob Spieldenner
(804) 718-9443 (cell)
bobspieldenner@schev.edu
August 14, 2024
For immediate release
RICHMOND – Today the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV), in consultation with the Virginia Health Care Foundation, awarded a total of $1 million in grants over two years to five universities to increase the number of mental health providers and improve mental health access on campus.
Christopher Newport University, George Mason University, James Madison University, Longwood University and Radford University received a total of $500,000 annually for 2025-26 from the second round of the Higher Education Mental Health Workforce Pilot.
The grants will underwrite the salary and benefits of an onsite Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) or Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) candidate. The universities will hire, train and supervise the LCSW/LPC candidates to work at on-campus mental health care facilities until licensed.
The pilot serves the dual purposes of: (1) expanding mental health services to students on an institution’s campus, while simultaneously; (2) increasing the mental health workforce pipeline overall by offering supervised clinical hours for candidates who seek to become LCSWs or LPCs.
“The first round of the pilot showed promise in helping students with their mental health needs while addressing the shortage of licensed mental health professionals,” said Scott Fleming, SCHEV director. “In round two, we received proposals from more institutions than we could fund and hope to see expanded support of the program in the future.”
The first round of the pilot program improved the ability of six universities to meet student demand for counseling and reduced staff burnout at counseling centers according to a recent SCHEV report.
Within a year and a half, seven grant-funded pre-licensees served 630 individual student-patients; collectively completed more than 4,486 clinical hours; reduced appointment wait times and improved staff morale.
The Virginia General Assembly funded the first pilot in the 2022 and allocated continued funding in the 2024-26 budget.
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The State Council of Higher Education for Virginia is the state’s coordinating agency for higher education. With Pathways to Opportunity: The Virginia Plan for Higher Education, SCHEV is dedicated to making Virginia the best state for education by 2030. For more on this statewide strategic plan, visit schev.edu/TheVirginiaPlan.
