The College for Behavioral Health Leadership

Where behavioral health leaders collaborate to grow and transform communities across the nation.

Workforce Solutions Jam | Building the Future Workforce: Youth Pathways into Behavioral Health Careers (May 2026)

By CBHL, HMA, National Council for Mental WellbeingResource Category: Videos & Webinars, Workforce Solutions Jam

Presentation Slides (PDF)

Workforce Solutions Jam | Building the Future Workforce: Youth Pathways into Behavioral Health Careers

This webinar was hosted as a partnership between the College for Behavioral Health Leadership (CBHL), The National Council for Mental Wellbeing, and Health Management Associates (HMA). 

Webinar description: As demand for behavioral health services continues to grow nationwide, strengthening the workforce pipeline must begin earlier, by engaging and supporting youth and young adults as future professionals, advocates, and peers. This Workforce Solutions Jam will spotlight innovative, real-world strategies that are expanding pathways into behavioral health careers while centering lived experience, equity, and sustainability. 

Featuring leaders from workforce development, provider networks, and youth-led movements, this session will explore how cross-sector partnerships, policy and reimbursement strategies, and youth-driven program design can collectively build a stronger, more resilient behavioral health workforce. Panelists share lessons learned from advancing career pathways for youth, including those with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and discuss how to cultivate a mission-driven workforce in under-resourced and highly regulated environments. 

Participants will leave with actionable insights on how to design, support, and scale youth-focused workforce initiatives that not only address shortages but also transform the future of behavioral health care. 

Learning Objectives:  

  • Identify key barriers and opportunities in developing youth-centered behavioral health workforce pathways, including policy, funding, and system-level challenges 
  • Explore innovative models for engaging youth and young adults as peer advocates, trainees, and future behavioral health professionals 
  • Understand the role of cross-sector partnerships (e.g., education, workforce systems, provider organizations) in building sustainable career pipelines 
  • Examine strategies to support inclusive workforce development, particularly for youth with intellectual and developmental disabilities and those with lived experience 
  • Apply practical approaches to strengthen recruitment, training, and retention of a mission-driven behavioral health workforce starting at the youth level 

Audience: We welcome all who are interested in building youth pathways into the behavioral health workforce. The material is primarily structured to provide maximum value to behavioral health leaders, workforce development organizations, policymakers, and youth-serving organizations developing and supporting early career pipelines.

Resources:

Speaker Information

Arc Telos Saint Amour

Arc Telos Saint Amour (they/them) is a disabled, queer and trans, Two-Spirit person of Mexican Native Indigenous descent (Coahuiltecan).  

Growing up houseless and hungry, in and out of child welfare, mental health, and other systems, they eventually found themselves gang-involved and carceral system-impacted, which fortunately is where they found the power of peer support. Although still systems-impacted today, Telos has taken their identity as a victim/survivor of childhood trauma and developed that lived and living experience into a passion for systems change, policy reform, and abolitionist, decolonization practices.

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Believing in self-agency and bodily autonomy, Arc Telos considers themselves to be a peer supporter and a harm reductionist, trying to empower others while navigating their own co-occurring serious mental illness and substance use journey. This has led them to a deep belief in Native Indigenous Animism, radical empathy, and the power of holistic affirmation and healing. Professionally, Arc Telos spent over ten years as a national executive business developer, opening new businesses all over the US. Following this, Arc Telos has spent over ten years as an executive leader in the non-profit field, leading organizations through-out the nation centering Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) practices and using trauma-informed and intersectionality-based frameworks. Currently they are the Executive Director of Youth MOVE National, deeply embedded within youth advocacy work, and the CEO of A.T. Consulting, as well as involved in several boards (Black and Pink, ForYouPage.Org, Unified Youth, etc.). Telos is of course more than just their career and identities. They are deeply passionate about all genres of music, documentaries, hiking and other outdoor adventures (in which they are infamous for achieving minor injuries and the loss of shoes), and absolutely refusing to be anyone other than Princess Peach in Mario Kart or Mario Party. 

Heather Mathews

Heather Mathews is the Executive Director of The Arc of Greater New Orleans (ArcGNO), a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting inclusion and supporting individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. A licensed clinical social worker, she brings experience working with individuals with co-occurring developmental disabilities and mental health needs, and focuses on expanding workforce opportunities, strengthening community integration, and advancing supportive policies. Under her leadership, ArcGNO has strengthened its position as a trusted regional resource, while expanding innovative workforce development initiatives and social enterprises that create meaningful employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

Rebekah Falkner, LMSW

Rebekah Falkner rejoined National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) in 2022.  Most recently, Rebekah has focused on the behavioral health workforce shortage, rural mental health care delivery, and the expansion of peer services in Texas.  Rebekah has also worked on the Texas 1115 Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment Program and Money Follows the Person.  Prior to working in Texas, Rebekah was a part of NASHP’s work in Arkansas centering on supported employment.  Rebekah grew up in Mississippi, earning a Bachelor of Social Work from the University of Mississippi and a Master of Social Work from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Sydney Carter, MPH, BBA

Sydney Carter is the WREDI Program Manager at The Network of Behavioral Health Providers (NBHP), a behavioral health workforce development initiative.
 
Sydney Carter served (NBHP) as the Policy Program & Special Projects Manager until March 2025, during which her duties included assisting with the WREDI Program at half capacity. Immediately prior, she served as the Program & Policy Coordinator for NBHP. 

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Prior to joining NBHP in July 2020 as The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, Mental Health Policy Fellow, Sydney completed her Master of Public Health program at The University of Texas (UTHealth) Health Science Center at Houston, School of Public Health, with a focus in Healthcare Management. Before that, she graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree with a focus in Operations Management and a minor in Health Education. 
 
Sydney has work experience in varying sectors, including: mental health and substance use, policy & legislative advocacy, cancer care, corporate wellness, information technology, business, education, and general fitness. Sydney is a passionate advocate for mental health and substance use access and policy change, especially in Texas, and also is a lifelong advocate for animal welfare in her personal life. In her free time, she enjoys volunteering at the Houston SPCA, reading, exercising, traveling, being outdoors, and spending time with family, friends, and her 4-year-old-dog-who-is-still-a-puppy, Theo. 

Background

The Workforce Solutions Jam is a monthly webinar to build national momentum and encourage collaboration through the Workforce Solutions Partnership. The partnership is leveraging Collective Impact to address the workforce crisis, and using a cross-sector approach to address the long-standing challenges for expanding and solidifying the behavioral health workforce.

The Workforce Solutions Partnership is the partnership between the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, Health Management Associates and the College for Behavioral Health Leadership. The Center for Workforce Solutions continues to operate as an initiative of the National Council.