Workforce Solutions Jam | Extending the Behavioral Health Workforce: Technology as an Extender
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).
In January, the Workforce Solutions Partnership launched a four-part webinar series titled Extending the Behavioral Health Workforce: Innovative Strategies for Integrated Care. This series showcases scalable, practical innovations that expand behavioral health workforce capacity while preserving quality of care. Each session explores a distinct strategy, from enhancing existing roles to leveraging lived experience and technology, to help organizations meet rising demand through integrated, community-centered approaches.
Session 3: Technology as an Extender
Technology plays an increasingly significant role in helping behavioral health organizations extend capacity and enhance service quality. In this session, we’ll explore how artificial intelligence (AI), digital platforms, and virtual training tools can be used to streamline workflows, modernize clinical operations, and accelerate workforce development in practical and meaningful ways. View our conversation about how emerging technology can support clinical judgment in behavioral health care settings. We highlight opportunities for improved supervision, documentation efficiency, training standardization, and real‑time quality improvement.
Learning Objectives
- Explore emerging workforce models that prepare frontline workers and other non‑licensed staff to deliver evidence‑informed behavioral health support in clinical and community‑based settings.
- Assess how community‑centered approaches can improve access to care and continuity of services, particularly in underserved or hard‑to‑reach populations.
- Identify strategies for developing internal training programs that expand care capacity while maintaining quality, supervision, and appropriate scope of practice
Audience: We welcome all who are interested in behavioral health workforce expansion. The material is primarily structured to provide maximum value to clinicians and clinical leaders..
Resources:
- Lyssn.io Slides (Lyssn.io)
- Preliminary investigation of an artificial intelligence-based cognitive behavioral training tool (PubMed)
- AI Governance & Human Oversight Framework (Rosa Thomas)
Speaker Information
Dr. Zac Imel is a Professor with Counseling Psychology Program in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Utah and also holds an Adjunct appointment in the Department of Psychiatry.
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He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Counseling Psychology doctoral program (APA-Accredited). He completed his pre-doctoral intern at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System (VAPSHCS) in Seattle. He was a clinical research post-doctoral fellow with the Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center (MIRECC) at VAPSHCS (APA-Accredited). As a faculty member, his primary interests involve research, teaching, and service related to the promotion and understanding of quality mental health treatment -with a specific focus on psychotherapy.
Alexandra Plante is a Senior Advisor of Substance Use at the National Council for Mental Wellbeing, and works alongside the United Nations Office of Drug Control Policy (UNODC) on unethical practices in substance use disorder treatment and recovery. Previously she has served as a consultant to U.S. federal agencies and state policymakers, international agencies, and private entities such as Google.
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Her writing has been featured in outlets such as Harvard Health Publications, Psychology Today, and The Fix. She holds a M.A. in Quantitative Research in Communications, and previously served as a Director at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School – Recovery Research Institute, and DynamiCare Health.
Rosa M. Thomas, MA, LLP is a senior healthcare executive with more than 20 years of leadership experience across behavioral health, crisis response systems, and Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs). She has led large-scale operational transformation initiatives focused on improving access, strengthening quality, reducing psychiatric hospitalization, and integrating behavioral and primary care within highly regulated environments.
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Rosa holds a master’s degree in psychology with certifications in neuropsychology and integrated healthcare delivery. She played a key leadership role in the development and launch of Michigan’s statewide Crisis and Access Line (MiCAL) and was appointed by the Governor of Michigan to serve on the School Safety and Mental Health Commission. Her expertise spans clinical operations, regulatory compliance, workforce strategy, and system redesign within publicly funded behavioral health systems.
She completed executive certification in AI Strategies for Business Transformation at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Rosa advises healthcare and nonprofit leaders on operational standard operating procedures (SOPs), governance frameworks, and human-in-the-loop models that integrate AI responsibly while safeguarding clinical judgment, compliance, workforce clarity, and sensitive information. Her work bridges executive strategy with ethical stewardship in care delivery.
Series Topics
Session 1: Maximizing Existing Roles (January 2026)
Session 2: Training the Allied Workforce (February 2026)
Session 3: Technology as an Extender (March 2026)
Session 4: Lived Experience as a Resource (April 2026)
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.