The Northwest ATTC is hosting a 3-part summer webinar series on innovative and successful approaches to workforce recruitment and retention. Featured presenters will offer experienced perspectives concerning relevant state-level initiatives, successful efforts of behavioral health organizations that provide culturally-responsive services to underserved populations, and methods of applying organizational change and process improvement strategies to challenges of staff recruitment and retention. Find the complete set of sessions here.

Part II: Recruitment and Retention Strategies for Culturally Specific Behavioral Health Staff

Fernando Peña (Executive Director of NW Instituto Latino) and Jerrod Murray (Painted Horse Recovery)

The current behavioral health workforce emergency is nothing new in the culturally and linguistically specific communities in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. Traditional recruitment strategies by dominant culture organizations often fail due to a variety of systemic and cultural barriers that are largely invisible to the established behavioral health systems. Executive Directors Fernando Peña with NW Instituto Latino and Jerrod Murray with Painted Horse Recovery operate culturally specific SUD Recovery Community Organizations that despite the ongoing behavioral health workforce emergency are fully staffed with culturally and linguistically specific staff and routinely have multiple applicants for each open position as one becomes available. In this session, Jerrod and Fernando will share their understanding of the systemic barriers that impact Indigenous and Latinx communities when it comes to the behavioral health workforce. And will share some strategies that they have used to recruit, retain and support their respective teams.