Bill Text: IL SB1979 | 2021-2022 | 102nd General Assembly | Introduced

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Bill Title: Creates the Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center of Illinois Act. Creates the Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center of Illinois, to be administered by a specified public institution of higher education for the purpose of leveraging workforce and behavioral health resources to produce reforms in Illinois. Provides for the structure and duties of the Center. Provides for the selection of the public institution of higher education to administer the Center. Provides for the adoption of rules. Effective immediately.

Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 9-0)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2021-04-23 - Rule 3-9(a) / Re-referred to Assignments [SB1979 Detail]

Download: Illinois-2021-SB1979-Introduced.html

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102ND GENERAL ASSEMBLY State of Illinois 2021 and 2022 SB1979 Introduced 2/26/2021, by Sen. Laura Fine SYNOPSIS AS INTRODUCED:
New Act
Creates the Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center of Illinois Act. Creates the Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center of Illinois, to be administered by a specified public institution of higher education for the purpose of leveraging workforce and behavioral health resources to produce reforms in Illinois. Provides for the structure and duties of the Center. Provides for the selection of the public institution of higher education to administer the Center. Provides for the adoption of rules. Effective immediately.
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FISCAL NOTE ACT MAY APPLY
A BILL FOR
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AN ACT concerning education.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
Section 1. Short title. This Act may be cited as the
Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center of Illinois Act.
Section 5. Findings. The General Assembly finds as
follows:
(1) There are insufficient behavioral health
professionals in this State's behavioral health workforce
and further that there are insufficient behavioral health
professionals trained in evidence-based practices.
(2) The Illinois behavioral health workforce situation
is at a crisis state and the lack of a behavioral health
strategy is exacerbating the problem.
(3) In 2019, the Journal of Community Health found
that suicide rates are disproportionately higher among
African American adolescents. From 2001 to 2017, the rate
for African American teen boys rose 60%, according to the
study. Among African American teen girls, rates nearly
tripled, rising by an astounding 182%. Illinois was among
the 10 states with the greatest number of African American
adolescent suicides (2015-2017).
(4) Workforce shortages are evident in all behavioral

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health professions, including, but not limited to,
psychiatry, psychiatric nursing, psychiatric physician
assistant, social work (licensed social work, licensed
clinical social work), counseling (licensed professional
counseling, licensed clinical professional counseling),
marriage and family therapy, licensed clinical psychology,
occupational therapy, prevention, substance use disorder
counseling, and peer support.
(5) The shortage of behavioral health practitioners
affects every Illinois county, every group of people with
behavioral health needs, including children and
adolescents, justice-involved populations, working
adults, people experiencing homelessness, veterans, and
older adults, and every health care and social service
setting, from residential facilities and hospitals to
community-based organizations and primary care clinics.
(6) Estimates of unmet needs consistently highlight
the dire situation in Illinois. Mental Health America
ranks Illinois 29th in the country in mental health
workforce availability based on its 480-to-1 ratio of
population to mental health professionals, and the Kaiser
Family Foundation estimates that only 23.3% of
Illinoisans' mental health needs can be met with its
current workforce.
(7) Shortages are especially acute in rural areas and
among low-income and under-insured individuals and

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families. 30.3% of Illinois' rural hospitals are in
designated primary care shortage areas and 93.7% are in
designated mental health shortage areas. Nationally, 40%
of psychiatrists work in cash-only practices, limiting
access for those who cannot afford high out-of-pocket
costs, especially Medicaid eligible individuals and
families.
(8) Spanish speaking therapists in suburban Cook
County, as well as in immigrant new growth communities
throughout the State, for example, and master's-prepared
social workers in rural communities are especially
difficult to recruit and retain.
(9) Illinois' shortage of psychiatrists specializing
in serving children and adolescents is also severe.
Eighty-one out of 102 Illinois counties have no child and
adolescent psychiatrists, and the remaining 21 counties
have only 310 child and adolescent psychiatrists for a
population of 2,450,000 children.
(10) Only 38.9% of the 121,000 Illinois youth aged 12
through 17 who experienced a major depressive episode
received care.
(11) An annual average of 799,000 people in Illinois
aged 12 and older need but do not receive substance use
disorder treatment at specialty facilities.
(12) According to the Department of Public Health,
opioid overdoses have killed nearly 11,000 people in

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Illinois since 2008. Just last year, nearly 2,000 people
died of overdoses, almost twice the number of fatal car
accidents.
(13) Behavioral health workforce shortages have led to
well-documented problems of long wait times for
appointments with psychiatrists (4 to 6 months in some
cases), high turnover, and unfilled vacancies for social
workers and other behavioral health professionals that
have eroded the gains in insurance coverage for mental
illness and substance use disorder under the federal
Affordable Care Act and parity laws.
(14) As a result, individuals with mental illness or
substance use disorders end up in hospital emergency
rooms, which are the most expensive level of care, or are
incarcerated and do not receive adequate care, if any.
(15) There are many organizations and institutions
that are affected by behavioral health workforce
shortages, but no one entity is responsible for monitoring
the workforce supply and intervening to ensure it can
effectively meet behavioral health needs throughout the
State.
(16) Workforce shortages are more complex than simple
numerical shortfalls. Identifying the optimal number,
type, and location of behavioral health professionals to
meet the differing needs of Illinois' diverse regions and
populations across the lifespan is a difficult logistical

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problem at the system and practice level that requires
coordinated efforts in research, education, service
delivery, and policy.
(17) This State has a compelling and substantial
interest in building a pipeline for behavioral health
professionals and to anchor research and education for
behavioral health workforce development. Beginning with
the proposed Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center
of Illinois, Illinois has the chance to develop a
blueprint to be a national leader in behavioral health
workforce development.
(18) The State must act now to improve the ability of
its residents to achieve their human potential and to live
healthy, productive lives by reducing the misery and
suffering of unmet behavioral health needs.
Section 10. Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center
of Illinois.
(a) The Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center of
Illinois is created and shall be administered by a teaching,
research, or both teaching and research public institution of
higher education in this State. Subject to appropriation, the
Center shall be operational on or before July 1, 2023.
(b) The Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center of
Illinois shall leverage workforce and behavioral health
resources, including, but not limited to, State, federal, and

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foundation grant funding, federal Workforce Investment Act of
1998 programs, the National Health Service Corps and other
nongraduate medical education physician workforce training
programs, and existing behavioral health partnerships, and
align with reforms in Illinois.
Section 15. Structure.
(a) The Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center of
Illinois shall be structured as a multisite model, and the
administering public institution of higher education shall
serve as the hub institution, complemented by secondary
regional hubs, namely academic institutions, that serve rural
and small urban areas and at least one academic institution
serving a densely urban municipality with more than 1,000,000
inhabitants.
(b) The Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center of
Illinois shall be located within one academic institution and
shall be tasked with a convening and coordinating role for
workforce research and planning, including monitoring progress
toward Center goals.
(c) The Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center of
Illinois shall also coordinate with key State agencies
involved in behavioral health, workforce development, and
higher education in order to leverage disparate resources from
health care, workforce, and economic development programs in
Illinois government.

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Section 20. Duties. The Behavioral Health Workforce
Education Center of Illinois shall perform the following
duties:
(1) Organize a consortium of universities in
partnerships with providers, school districts, law
enforcement, consumers and their families, State agencies,
and other stakeholders to implement workforce development
concepts and strategies in every region of this State.
(2) Be responsible for developing and implementing a
strategic plan for the recruitment, education, and
retention of a qualified, diverse, and evolving behavioral
health workforce in this State. Its planning and
activities shall include:
(A) convening and organizing vested stakeholders
spanning government agencies, clinics, behavioral
health facilities, prevention programs, hospitals,
schools, jails, prisons and juvenile justice, police
and emergency medical services, consumers and their
families, and other stakeholders;
(B) collecting and analyzing data on the
behavioral health workforce in Illinois, with detailed
information on specialties, credentials, additional
qualifications (such as training or experience in
particular models of care), location of practice, and
demographic characteristics, including age, gender,

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race and ethnicity, and languages spoken;
(C) building partnerships with school districts,
public institutions of higher education, and workforce
investment agencies to create pipelines to behavioral
health careers from high schools and colleges,
pathways to behavioral health specialization among
health professional students, and expanded behavioral
health residency and internship opportunities for
graduates;
(D) evaluating and disseminating information about
evidence-based practices emerging from research
regarding promising modalities of treatment, care
coordination models, and medications;
(E) developing systems for tracking the
utilization of evidence-based practices that most
effectively meet behavioral health needs; and
(F) providing technical assistance to support
professional training and continuing education
programs that provide effective training in
evidence-based behavioral health practices.
(3) Coordinate data collection and analysis, including
systematic tracking of the behavioral health workforce and
datasets that support workforce planning for an
accessible, high-quality behavioral health system. In the
medium to long-term, the Center shall develop Illinois
behavioral workforce data capacity by:

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(A) filling gaps in workforce data by collecting
information on specialty, training, and qualifications
for specific models of care, demographic
characteristics, including gender, race, ethnicity,
and languages spoken, and participation in public and
private insurance networks;
(B) identifying the highest priority geographies,
populations, and occupations for recruitment and
training;
(C) monitoring the incidence of behavioral health
conditions to improve estimates of unmet need; and
(D) compiling up-to-date, evidence-based
practices, monitoring utilization, and aligning
training resources to improve the uptake of the most
effective practices.
(4) Work to grow and advance peer and parent-peer
workforce development by:
(A) assessing the credentialing and reimbursement
processes and recommending reforms;
(B) evaluating available peer-parent training
models, choosing a model that meets Illinois' needs,
and working with partners to implement it universally
in child-serving programs throughout this State; and
(C) including peer recovery specialists and
parent-peer support professionals in interdisciplinary
training programs.

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(5) Focus on the training of behavioral health
professionals in telehealth techniques, including taking
advantage of a telehealth network that exists, and other
innovative means of care delivery in order to increase
access to behavioral health services for all persons
within this State.
(6) No later than December 1 of every odd-numbered
year, prepare a report of its activities under this Act.
The report shall be filed electronically with the General
Assembly, as provided under Section 3.1 of the General
Assembly Organization Act, and shall be provided
electronically to any member of the General Assembly upon
request.
Section 25. Selection process.
(a) No later than 90 days after the effective date of this
Act, the Board of Higher Education shall select a public
institution of higher education, with input and assistance
from the Division of Mental Health of the Department of Human
Services, to administer the Behavioral Health Workforce
Education Center of Illinois.
(b) The selection process shall articulate the principles
of the Behavioral Health Workforce Education Center of
Illinois, not inconsistent with this Act.
(c) The Board of Higher Education, with input and
assistance from the Division of Mental Health of the

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Department of Human Services, shall make its selection of a
public institution of higher education based on its ability
and willingness to execute the following tasks:
(1) Convening academic institutions providing
behavioral health education to:
(A) develop curricula to train future behavioral
health professionals in evidence-based practices that
meet the most urgent needs of Illinois' residents;
(B) build capacity to provide clinical training
and supervision; and
(C) facilitate telehealth services to every region
of the State.
(2) Functioning as a clearinghouse for research,
education, and training efforts to identify and
disseminate evidence-based practices across the State.
(3) Leveraging financial support from grants and
social impact loan funds.
(4) Providing infrastructure to organize regional
behavioral health education and outreach. As budgets
allow, this shall include conference and training space,
research and faculty staff time, telehealth, and distance
learning equipment.
(5) Working with regional hubs that assess and serve
the workforce needs of specific, well-defined regions and
specialize in specific research and training areas, such
as telehealth or mental health-criminal justice

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partnerships, for which the regional hub can serve as a
statewide leader.
(d) The Board of Higher Education may adopt such rules as
may be necessary to implement and administer this Section.
Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect upon
becoming law.