Concordia’s Graduate & Continuing Studies program has received a $34,000 grant from the Minnesota Department of Health to offer free supervision training for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) professionals.
The Mental Health Cultural Community Continuing Education (MHCCCE) grant expands programming outreach and licensure opportunities for underserved and underrepresented community professionals looking to become qualified to serve as supervisors and mental health practitioners. They must be residents of Minnesota and a licensed LICSW, LPC, or LPCC.
With the grant, Concordia aims to strengthen existing connections with tribal communities, especially Tribal Mental Health and Indian Health services. Included in the proposal was the enthusiastic support Concordia had received from organizations serving these communities in the form of letters of recommendation. Concordia continues to seek their insight and perspective to shape the program.
Dr. Laurie Dahley, associate professor emeritus of social work and now the director of the social work continuing education program, has been working with the Graduate & Continuing Studies office after retiring from Concordia’s faculty in the social work program in the spring of 2022. She worked with Jillain Veil-Ehnert, director of Foundation Relations and Research Grants, and Rebecca Amundsen, executive director of Continuing Studies, to write the grant proposal.
Dahley was excited in part because the grant has previously only been awarded to schools in urban areas.
“We want to support the rural communities and be able to offer training to people in our region to support their professional development,” Dahley said. “This grant will really help us to be able to do that.”
The work is already starting, but the office will truly initiate the grant in the new year with a supervision course slated to be held in March.