That’s part of the message shared by Lynda Battaglia, Genesee County director of Mental Health & Community Services, in a phone interview with The Batavian.
“As a result of the pandemic, I think the mental health field has been recognized as essential. It's definitely received more recognition now than it ever has, and it's unfortunate that it took a pandemic to have that happen,” said Battaglia (photo above).
While there has been a renewed focus on mental health, substance use disorder, social services and developmental disabilities over the past two years, a by-product of that is the difficulty in finding qualified professionals to serve those in need.
According to information from LeaderStat, a national staffing agency for healthcare organizations, “The shortage of mental health care professionals coupled with the increased demand for services has led to a grim situation for many patients and providers, and there is no quick fix on the horizon.”
Projections by the Health Resources and Services Administration indicate the United States will need to add 10,000 providers by 2025 to close “the increasing divide” and more than half, over 24 million, of persons dealing with a mental health condition are going untreated and one in five adults seeking treatment is finding his or her needs unmet.
Battaglia said she is feeling a similar crunch in Genesee County as her department currently is not taking any new clients because she has five openings on her counseling staff.
“It's the times that we're in right now,” she said. “I do foresee things getting better. We are not currently taking brand new clients, but our Open Access (crisis walk-in) has remained open throughout the pandemic and remains open today.”
She said Genesee County Mental Health is at a “triaging stage” now.
“We’re taking individuals who are high need or high risk. We're really trying to triage people that call -- individuals that are being discharged from the hospital,” she advised.
Officials at other human services agencies, such as Genesee/Orleans Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse, also are reporting numerous job openings – from nurses to counselors to support staff.
Battaglia said she is hoping the staffing situation will get better in May and June “when we will get some clinical people who graduate with their master's in mental health counseling or social work who want to work here.”
“We do have a couple of prospective individuals who are looking to work here and have to go through that hiring process that we have here,” she said.
Currently, each of the dozen or so professionals employed at GCMH have a caseload of 90 to 110 patients.
“That’s high,” she said. “That’s not ideal, but that's what we have to work with. Our supervisors are working at high capacity and high caseloads in addition to providing supervision to staff. And that's not isolated to Genesee County Mental Health. That’s a trend across the state in regard to caseload capacity and (job) vacancies. So, my counterparts are feeling that, too.”
What that does is place additional stress on the counselors, Battaglia said.
“I have to applaud my staff. Their dedication and their resiliency and their ability to do this every day because the work in and of itself, can be challenging on a person in the field,” she said. “And then you couple that with a multitude of additional stressors -- family and all the hats that you wear and trying to put more individuals on your caseload and providing the services that you want to provide.”
Battaglia mentioned the mental health field carries a high rate of burnout.
“Self-care is essential to try to prevent burnout. There’s a lot of things that can help staff with burnout. But isolating during the pandemic was not helpful,” she explained.
“Now, with things opening up (from the COVID-19 restrictions), I can feel a shift in energy here with just more people being able to talk with one another. We still have to wear masks here, because we're considered a healthcare setting, but just the shift in energy of things being more open.”
Genesee County is advertising for positions in the department on its website and also on the Indeed worldwide employment site.
“We did two job fairs -- two virtual job fairs at two different points during the year and we had zero candidates,” she said. “That just speaks to kind of where we are in the times right now with a lot of things virtual. And there are some things like a job fair that's really challenging to do virtually.”
