Chicago Tribune: Daniel Do (MSW’13, PhD’24) Connects Mental Health Crisis with Workforce Compensation
There is an overwhelming shortage of professionals specializing in youth mental health. In December 2020, the US Surgeon General published an advisory on the mental health crisis facing youth today. The question remains: how do we address the growing youth mental health crisis? In a Chicago Tribune op-ed, Tony Liu cited PhD Candidate Daniel Do’s (MSW’13, PhD’24) research to connect America’s youth mental health struggles with mental health providers’ pay inequity compared to other health professions.
Excerpt from “One Way to Tackle America’s Youth Mental Health Challenge: Change Billing” by Tony Liu, originally published in Chicago Tribune:
“Comparing the supply of behavioral health practitioners in 2013 to demand and projected supply in 2025, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services projects a shortage of clinical, counseling and school psychologists by 57,490 individuals; mental health and substance abuse social workers by 48,540; and school counselors by 78,050.
These are daunting numbers, but some school districts are working to address the issue. As Mila Koumpilova reports for ChalkBeat, Chicago Public Schools will add 64 counselors by 2023 to meet student needs. Beyond local school districts, we must ask what it would take to recruit more individuals to the mental health workforce and to reduce turnover in a demanding profession.
One answer is adequate compensation.
In Social Work Today, Daniel Do, a doctoral candidate at the Boston University School of Social Work, says mental health workforce attrition stems partly from inadequate compensation: ‘We have seen agencies try to increase their access to mental health providers over the years, and yet the pay is sharply lower when compared with other health professions such as nursing and primary care providers.’
This idea is echoed in a 2019 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, or NASEM, that describes institutional barriers that may ‘limit the adequate payment of social workers, gerontologists and other social care workers.’”