Ouachita Behavioral Health and Wellness has been awarded $1,427,718.09 through the Arkansas Rural Health Transformation Program RISE Grant for our “Grow, Train, and Retain” Rural Behavioral Health Workforce Initiative.
This is a tremendous opportunity for OBHAW, but what makes me most excited is what this investment means for our employees, our organization, and the people and communities we serve.
Our proposal was built around something we know very well: providing exceptional behavioral healthcare in rural Arkansas depends on having exceptional people. Recruiting qualified behavioral health professionals can be difficult, and retaining and supporting the talented employees we already have is just as important. When positions remain vacant or employees leave, it affects not only their coworkers, but also appointment availability, continuity of care, and the relationships our clients depend on.
That is why our RISE project is centered around four important goals: Grow. Train. Retain. Strengthen.
Grow means investing in our workforce pipeline—improving recruitment, supporting internships and supervision, evaluating compensation, and helping OBHAW compete for the talented professionals we need in our communities.
Train means creating more opportunities for our employees to grow professionally. The grant will support advanced clinical training and certifications in areas such as EMDR, Brainspotting, Play Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, crisis intervention, suicide prevention, military and veteran mental health, trauma-informed care, and integrated behavioral health. It will also support leadership and operational development in areas including project management, nonprofit leadership, strategic planning, compliance, grant management, financial stewardship, facilities management,
Retain means investing in the people who have chosen to make OBHAW part of their careers. Our proposal includes professional growth, employee recognition, wellness supports, education time, leadership development, career-growth opportunities, and targeted retention strategies. It also includes improvements to employee relaxation spaces because taking care of the people who spend their days caring for others matters.
Strengthen means making sure the organization behind our employees is strong, sustainable, and prepared for the future. The grant will help us improve technology, data and performance analytics, compliance, financial stewardship, strategic planning, project management, and other organizational systems that allow our teams to do their jobs effectively.
Bringing Our Strategic Plan and Vision to Life
One of the commitments reflected in our Strategic Plan and Vision Statement is our goal for OBHAW to be the Best Place to Work. This grant brings us another significant step closer to that vision.
Being the Best Place to Work is about more than compensation or benefits. It means creating an organization where people feel valued and supported, where employees have opportunities to learn and grow, where excellent work is recognized, where we develop leaders from within, and where our employees have the resources they need to do meaningful work while also supporting their own well-being.
That is what makes this grant so exciting. Grow, Train, and Retain isn’t separate from our vision—it helps us put that vision into action.
Through this funding, we will have new resources to invest intentionally in professional development, advanced certifications, employee wellness and recognition, leadership development, career growth, education time, recruitment and retention, and the organizational systems that support our employees every day. These are all important components of the initiative we proposed.
And when we invest in our employees, we are also investing directly in our clients and communities.
Over time, we expect this investment to help us build stronger applicant pipelines, improve employee retention and engagement, increase opportunities for advanced training and certification, expand specialized evidence-based services, improve appointment availability where workforce capacity allows, preserve continuity of care, and strengthen our ability to use data to make good decisions about where our resources are needed most.
Perhaps most importantly, this is not intended to be a temporary investment that disappears when the grant period ends.
Our proposal was deliberately designed to build lasting capacity within OBHAW. The clinical certifications, leadership skills, compliance expertise, project-management capabilities, data-analytics competencies, and workforce practices that you requested through this initiative will remain within our organization. We intend to incorporate professional development, succession planning, employee engagement, recognition, wellness, and career advancement into our culture and ongoing planning.
This Award Belongs to All of Us
I also want each of you to know that this
award reflects the work you do every day.
A grant of this magnitude provides resources and opportunities, but our employees are the people who will turn those resources into meaningful change. The reputation OBHAW has built, the relationships we have with our communities, and the care we provide to thousands of Arkansans are possible because of the commitment of our team.
Our vision of becoming the Best Place to Work is a journey, and this grant gives us significant new resources to move that vision forward. It gives us an opportunity to invest intentionally in
the people who make OBHAW what it is today while building an even stronger organization for those who will join us in the future.
There will be much more information to come as we move into implementation, including details about the individual training you requested and professional-development opportunities, employee initiatives, timelines, and how different departments will be involved.
For today, though, I hope you will take a moment to celebrate this accomplishment and what it represents for our future.
We are investing in our people. We are investing in our culture. We are investing in our communities. And we are investing in the future of OBHAW.
Together, we are taking another important step toward making OBHAW the Best Place to Work while strengthening our ability to provide exceptional behavioral healthcare to the people and communities who count on us.
Thank you for being part of OBHAW and for the work you do every day. I am excited about what comes next and what we will accomplish together.