Increasing Access to a Diverse Mental Health Workforce through Emergency Reciprocity Licensure

New Jersey's COVID-19 Temporary Emergency Reciprocity Licensure Program provided temporary licenses to more than 31000 out-of-state healthcare practitioners, over a quarter of whom were mental health providers. As the need for mental health care accelerated during the pandemic, especially among health disparity populations, expanding mental health provider pools may be a critical tool to increase access to care. In January 2021, we surveyed New Jersey's temporary licensees. We analyzed over 4500 mental health provider responses to examine the impact of the temporary licensure program on access to mental health care overall and on enhancing a diverse mental health workforce. Over 3700 respondents used their temporary license to provide mental health care to New Jersey patients. About 7% of respondents self-identified as Hispanic, 12% Black, 6% Asian, 1% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0% (more than 5) Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. They treated about 30100 New Jersey patients, 40% of whom were new to the provider, and 81% delivered care exclusively using telehealth. Respondents conversed with patients in at least 13 languages. About 53% served at least one patient from an underserved racial/ethnic minority group. Our findings suggest that temporary out-of-state mental health providers helped enhance mental health care continuity and access. Copyright 2023 Federation of State Medical Boards. All Rights Reserved.

Bouncing Forward from COVID in Higher Education

This paper is a call to arms to bounce forward in the classroom as we emerge from the COVID crisis. The predominant return to in-person classes in higher education should not be a return to the same normal classroom conditions that existed prior to the pandemic. In the last 2+ years, we have come an extraordinarily long way in our abilities and in our inclinations to employ technologies and techniques in a blended classroom environment that truly improves the learning experience. In this paper, we call for and contribute to such an effort. Tying into the abundance of literature dealing with the COVID educational environment, we present our findings and ideas from carefully studying our own faculty. We summarize our overall findings as well as describe in detail three general categories that we believe hold great promise for improving the higher education classroom in the post-crisis era, namely digital chalkboards / screen sharing;remote participation and collaboration;and a paperless classroom. We argue that educators have an obligation and opportunity to not simply return to pre-crisis methods. © 2022 Public Domain.

It Starts at Home: Internal Actions Police Agencies Can Take to Improve Staffing

The shortage of police officers in the United States has become a crisis. Many officers leave the force after only a few years, and police departments struggle to find qualified applicants to fill rapidly increasing openings. This thesis asks what police leaders can do to solve their staffing problems. The research looks to the armed forces recruitment methodology and the private sectors use of analytics to address strategic problems, and analyzes two police departments that have been able to reduce the number of open positions through an integrated approach to recruiting, retention, and force management. The research finds that traditional methods are no longer effective;modern recruiting requires departments to adapt to new and changing environments and generations. Recruitment advertising must be honest and targeted to the right audience, and must use the most appropriate medium for the message. To promote retention, police leaders must go beyond offering competitive compensation;equally as important, they must consider how they engage with and connect to their employees. Further, successful force management requires leaders to determine which positions must truly be filled by sworn officers and which can be filled by appropriately skilled civilians. To address staffing challenges, police leaders must start with retention and force management to determine what and who they need, and then enhance their recruiting efforts to complete the triad and fill their open spots.

Dual Teaching: Simultaneous Remote and In-Person Learning during COVID

Social distancing guidelines put in place to combat COVID-19 resulted in a general education introductory information technology course being taught in a dual teaching environment. Each lesson, some students attended in-person while simultaneously others attended remotely. Students alternated each lesson between in-person and remote attendance. We examined whether there was any difference in performance between in-person and remote attendance using an end-of-lesson quiz. For some students the quiz was announced and for others it was unannounced. Additionally, we measured the subjective experience of students via a survey. We found that students attending class in-person performed better on end of class quizzes;the difference was small but statistically significant. In-person students also reported paying more attention, being more engaged, and understanding the lesson material better than remote students. Announcing the quiz did not statistically affect performance, although it did improve the subjective experience of in-person students. Finally, when it comes to dual teaching, both students and instructors prefer in-person or remote teaching. Nevertheless, dual teaching may be an effective approach;there was little difference in final course grades between in-person teaching and dual teaching. © 2021 Public Domain.