Like other segments of the human services field, the public mental health system is experiencing significant difficulty in attracting and retaining qualified personnel to provide appropriate services and to effectively manage the myriad agencies on which it relies at the community level. Constrained state budgets and tightly capped reimbursement rates result in salaries for line staff and other professionals that are barely competitive with fields requiring far less professional commitment and responsibility. Vacancy and turnover rates are high.

Mental health workers with the ability to provide services with particular sensitivity to cultural, language, or age-related needs are in especially short supply in many areas. This is a critical problem for re-entry initiatives where the vast majority of returning prisoners are from a minority culture; 63 percent of prisoners in 2003 were either of Hispanic origin or black. ^[1]   At a time when awareness of the need for culturally sensitive services has grown, it is a sad truth that providers in many communities simply cannot attract the workers needed to implement those services. (See Policy Statement 9, Development of Programming Plan, for further discussion of cultural competency in service delivery.)

Policymakers must plan to expand the mental health workforce in order to ensure that research is translated into practice by front-line providers. Consumers and family members with an intimate knowledge of system and individual needs, as well as individuals trained in cultural competency with the skills to reach underserved populations, should be recruited to join the ranks of providers.