Seattle University Receives Grant from Kaiser Permanente

Danie Eagleton, director of SU’s CAPS program, and Dr. Tam Dinh, director of the Master of Social Work program in the College of Arts and Sciences, will together be leading a new program focused on increasing the number and diversity of licensed mental health practitioners in the state of Washington.

In April, Seattle University received $250,000 from Kaiser Permanente to serve as Washington State Co-Chair of the National Mental Health Workforce Acceleration Collaborative, in partnership with the National Council for Mental Wellbeing. This is a national program that was launched last year in the states of Georgia and Colorado and this year has expanded to southern California, Hawaii and Washington. The program aims to address the fact that only 43 percent of master’s degree graduates nationwide achieve licensure status. Becoming licensed as a mental health professional involves practicing under supervision for a minimum number of hours and passing an exam.

In addition to funding SU administrative costs, Kaiser Permanente will directly support placement sites to host MA and pre-MA candidates, including providing online supervision services where the placement site does not have this option. In its co-chair role, SU will recruit diverse candidates as well as placement sites serving diverse communities that are traditionally underserved with mental health services. SU will work collaboratively with other universities, credentialing institutions, Kaiser Permanente and the National Council for Mental Wellbeing to ensure that the program is responsive to the Washington state context and will seek to expand the program going forward to serve additional candidates and communities.