It’s well-known that Florida has a shortage of mental health professionals, and the state wants to do something about it: With $5 million in ongoing state funding, the University of South Florida has been selected to be the site of the Florida Behavioral Health Workforce Center, whose goal is to bolster efforts to recruit and retain behavioral health professionals.
“We’re facing a growing crisis of a shortage of behavioral health professionals, including mental health counselors and social workers,” said Julie Cerovich, dean of the USF School of Behavioral and Community Sciences.
More than half of Americans live in areas with a shortage of mental health professionals, and the situation is even worse in Florida, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which attributes the shortage to a lack of uniformity among mental health professionals, reimbursement challenges, and health care worker burnout.
The “Living Well” bill, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in March, also created a new category of hospitals dedicated to advancing behavioral health care. All four of these hospitals are university-affiliated teaching hospitals. They include Tampa General Hospital and USF, UF Health Shands Hospital and UF Health Jacksonville in Gainesville, which are affiliated with the University of Florida, and Jackson Memorial Hospital and University of Miami in Miami. The Legislature will allocate $100 million annually for the next three years to teaching hospitals and provide additional funding for psychiatry residency positions.
