Grant Will Help Becker College Students Studying Mental Health

From Becker College:

January 27 2020

WORCESTER/LEICESTER, Mass.– Becker College has been awarded a $30,000 grant from the Reliant Foundation to fund a Mental Health Career Pipeline Scholarship for students enrolled in the College’s Master of Arts in Mental Health Counseling. The grant will help address the shortage of mental health professionals in the Greater Worcester area by supporting students in the program.

“Becker College is deeply grateful for the continued support of the Reliant Foundation, which recognizes the strong need for experienced mental health professionals in the area,” said Dr. Beth Greenberg, associate professor of psychology and program coordinator for the Master of Arts in Mental Health Counseling. “The Mental Health Career Pipeline Scholarship will provide our students with the financial support they need to complete their education and training. At the same time, it will continue to provide valuable and much-needed mental health services to the community, particularly for residents of Leicester and surrounding towns, where those services are limited.”

The College’s master’s program is the only graduate mental health counseling program in the state that maintains an on-campus clinic, open to the public, where graduate students provide counseling services to community residents under the direct supervision of licensed mental health professionals. Located on its Leicester Campus, the Community Counseling Clinic @ Becker College offers counseling for children, adolescents, and adults for a low fee of $15 per session, roughly equivalent to most insurance co-payments. The program is unique to Becker and the only master’s level mental health counseling program in the Commonwealth that gives graduate students an opportunity to work with members of the community experiencing mental health issues.

This is the second grant the College has received from the Reliant Foundation. In January 2019, the College’s graduate program in Mental Health Counseling received funding to support eight mental health education workshops for parents in Leicester, Spencer, and East Brookfield.

“Reliant Foundation is proud to once again support the great work taking place at Becker College,” said Kelsa Zereski, Reliant Foundation’s president. “Preparing today’s college students to be the mental health experts of tomorrow is crucial to the on-going effort to address the mental health and substance use disorder challenges we face in our community and beyond.”

This press release was produced by the Becker College. The views expressed here are the author’s own.