A unique partnership between UMass Chan Medical School, the City of Worcester, Open Sky Community Services, Seven Hills Foundation, United Way of Central Massachusetts and Worcester State University has led to the creation of the Worcester Youth Behavioral Health Pathway Program, a mentorship initiative aimed at attracting students underrepresented in medicine to careers in the behavioral health and mental health fields.
In 2022, after recognizing a need for more local opportunities for young people to explore a behavioral health career, the partner organizations collaborated to put together a two-week behavioral health pathway pilot program for a cohort of 13 Worcester Public Schools students.
Last year’s program was funded by UMass Chan, Open Sky and United Way. The students stayed in residence halls at Worcester State University for two weeks and spent each day at UMass Chan for team building exercises and to listen to lectures.
“It’s a full community effort to pull this program together and it takes representatives from key organizations across the city to schedule the program, put a curriculum together and make sure there’s enough funding in place to do it the right way and improve on what we were able to accomplish during our pilot program last year,” said Ché Anderson, assistant vice chancellor for city & community relations at UMass Chan.
This year, Worcester Health and Human Services is doubling the enrollment and recruiting up to 30 local public high school students. Prospective students must be in grades 10 or 11 and between the ages of 16 and 18 to participate in the program this summer.
“The expectation is the program is going to create, maintain and sustain a pipeline of students of color to consider being clinicians, therapists, board-certified behavioral analysts or behavior technicians, and meet people of color in those roles, so that the youth that we’re serving are having windows and mirrors in front of them, and have an opportunity to meet someone who is local and also from underrepresented communities that we see in these careers,” said Letisha Amuwo, senior staff assistant and project manager in Worcester’s Health and Human Services.
According to Amuwo, there isn’t a grade point average requirement for the students to be accepted, but they are purposefully looking for students who are committed to their academic success, participating in extracurricular activities, or have part-time jobs after school or on weekends. Students will receive a stipend for participating in the program.
The program offers a two-week college experience from July 31 to Aug. 11, which includes attending lectures and panels at UMass Chan to help develop language skills necessary to enter a field of behavioral health. The students will again stay in residence halls at Worcester State University and will be required to keep a journal about their experiences. The journals are being donated and customized for the program’s students by Moleskin notebook company.
“It’s a great experience for the students. They’re participating in activities that are not only getting them acclimated to a college environment, but certainly are focused on the content of the program and really making them aware of what is out there in behavioral health programs,” said Ryan Forsythe, EdD, vice president for enrollment management at Worcester State University.
Open Sky and Seven Hills Foundation, under the auspices of the Central Mass Behavioral Health Career Pipeline Collaborative, received a behavioral health grant from the state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services for two years to fund the project in Worcester in 2023 and 2024.
“I was very impressed with last year’s program and with the success of it. I think the exposure to the behavioral health fields is also exposing young people to how to seek help if they need it and busting some stigma around behavioral health needs,” said Lorie Martiska, vice president of advancement at Open Sky. “I think the program has many, many benefits to it and we’re all so excited about other potential that can grow from this.”
The application to enroll in the program was posted and shared with wraparound coordinators at Worcester high schools in mid-January. To date, more than two dozen students have applied.
