DIGEST - Volume 10, Issue 3-FULL DIGEST

2 TPC Digest 2 | TPC Digest H olistic care, integrating both physical and mental needs, is imperative within health care settings. Integrated behavioral health care serves as a specialization in counseling in which counselors provide mental health services in health care settings such as clinics and hospitals. Given its unique setting, differences exist within this type of counseling compared to others, including shorter sessions and a great deal of interdisciplinary collaboration. With a niche counseling specialization as such, counselors- in-training need clear, tailored training to best prepare them to provide services in integrated care. T he Program for the Integrated Training of Counselors in Behavioral Health (PITCH) serves as an innovative program designed to train and prepare counseling students to provide integrated behavioral health care. The Primary Care Behavioral Health (PCBH) consultation model underpins the philosophies of PITCH training and delivery, emphasizing the integration of behavioral health consultants (BHCs), largely generalist clinicians, with the primary care team. In addition to PITCH’s primary goal of training professional counselors to provide services in the integrated behavioral health setting, PITCH tailors training to rural, vulnerable, and underserved communities. In this article, we break down PITCH’s features toward its goal of facilitating specialized training in integrated behavioral health care. To facilitate tailored training, specialized field placements, with particular attention to placements interested in and capable of housing a BHC trainee, are crucial. Cultivating appropriate placements entailed a great deal of communication with the sites, including initial meetings, follow-up visits, orientation to the role and scope of BHCs, and education on the needs and expectations from the site. Further, the PITCH curriculum entailed completing two specialized courses in addition to two 300-hour clinical rotations, 120 hours of which needed to be direct clinical contact at an approved specialized placement site. Trainees first took the IBH-I course, introducing the basic information related to counseling in the primary care setting. In the second course (IBH-II), students applied their knowledge of PCBH through more hands-on experiences in the classroom such as role play and evaluation of an initial consultation visit with a patient. P er the grant supporting PITCH, the program underwent program evaluations to ensure training and development efficacy. Trainee-focused metrics, site-focused metrics, and rapid cycle quality improvement were conducted to strengthen the budding program across several domains. Through the development and instrumentation of PITCH, the following challenges existed: on-site clinical supervision, knowledge about PCBH and the BHC role, and shortage of Spanish- speaking service providers. Potential solutions to the experienced challenges included modifying the selection process for specialized field placements, ongoing education and advocacy, and recruitment and resources. T he need for counselor education to integrate training in primary care continues to grow. Overall, standardized training models, such as PCBH undergirding PITCH, can tend to the community’s needs of comprehensive primary care. Thus, we hope that our model through the PITCH program will be useful to other counselor education programs embarking on establishing and implementing similar integrated practice training. Jessica Lloyd-Hazlett, PhD, NCC, LPC, is an associate professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Cory Knight, MS, is a master’s student at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Stacy Ogbeide, PsyD, ABPP, is a behavioral health consultant, licensed psychologist, and associate professor at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center San Antonio. Heather Trepal, PhD, LPC-S, is a professor and coordinator of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling Program at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Noel Blessing, MS, is a doctoral student at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Correspondence may be addressed to Jessica Lloyd-Hazlett, 501 W. Cesar E. Chavez Blvd., DB 4.132, San Antonio, TX 78207, Jessica.lloyd-hazlett@utsa.edu. Jessica Lloyd-Hazlett, Cory Knight, Stacy Ogbeide, Heather Trepal, Noel Blessing Strengthening the Behavioral Health Workforce Spotlight on PITCH