Many aspiring mental health practitioners in Hawaiʻi begin their career journey thinking they are embarking on a straightforward path toward helping their community, only to find themselves walking into many regulations and bureaucratic red tape.
John Souza, Jr., an assistant professor in the Department of Family and Consumer Sciences at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, is working to change that with his “Do You Know the Way to Licensure?” project. The goal is to fix the critical disconnects in the state’s mental health workforce pipeline, leading to more fully licensed providers for local families.
Hidden hurdles
Souza’s preliminary research reveals that the transition from graduation to full licensure is where many practitioners get lost, often because of administrative and financial burden of accruing post-graduate supervised hours.
“Instead of being sure that people are ready to sit with individuals, couples and families and help them heal, we’re seeing that the licensure process is testing people’s ability to withstand financial hardship,” said Souza.
The initiative, part of the Marriage and Family Therapy Lab at the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resilience, is collecting data from four different routes—undergraduates, current graduate students, pre-licensed graduates and licensed providers. Souza wants to advocate for policy changes that will streamline the path to practice.
For more information or to participate in the study, contact Souza at john.souza@hawaii.edu.
