OSU professor will aid Oklahoma Department of Corrections with mental health workforce development
Monday, August 17, 2009
TULSA, Okla. -- Richard Wansley, Ph.D., associate professor of Behavioral Sciences
at Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences, has received a 12-month,
$100,000 grant from the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services
for a project, entitled “A Workforce Development Program for Correctional Mental Health
Services in Oklahoma.”
The grant supports collaboration with the Oklahoma Department of Corrections and includes
arranging for students enrolled in university-based behavioral health programs to
receive a portion of their training in DOC facilities, with mentoring by DOC psychologists.
“Of the more than 25,000 inmates in Oklahoma’s correctional facilities, 50 percent
have a history of, or are currently exhibiting some form of mental health problem.
Nearly 80 percent of women in Oklahoma’s prisons have a diagnosable mental illness
or a mental health problem that requires treatment,” Wansley says.
Support for research on correctional mental health issues is also part of the project’s
scope of work. Wansley will serve as the primary administrator for the research and
will be a co-investigator in each funded project. “The Program aims to link Oklahoma
academics with DOC mental health services in order to create a pipeline of graduates
who may wish to practice as a correctional mental health provider, and also provides
students with extraordinary learning experiences, dealing with complex and, sometimes,
serious mental health problems,” he says.
Students who participate in the practicum training experiences in DOC facilities are
currently assigned to the Joseph Harp Correctional Center, Lexington Assessment and
Reception Center, and the Mable Bassett Correctional Center for Women. Wansley says
small grants will be made available to fund faculty-student projects in response to
priority interests of the DOC’s Division of Mental Health Services. The priorities
include issues such as validating the incidence of mental illness among incarcerated
offenders, defining the professional development needs for DOC behavioral health specialists,
and other topics.
Academic programs now associated with the project include OSU-Stillwater (Psychology);
OU-Norman (Counseling Psychology); OU-Norman (Social Work); Oklahoma City University
(Psychology–LPC); and the University of Tulsa (Clinical Psychology). Each program
has one or more faculty members who participate in the Training Taskforce along with
DOC psychologists.