Career Technical Education (CTE) Month offers the perfect opportunity to spotlight the important programs throughout California that are providing students with hands-on career and academic skills, and even the soft skills necessary for success in the modern workplace, such as critical thinking, communication, teamwork and leadership.

Sacramento County Office of Education’s (SCOE) School-Based Mental Health and Wellness career pathway aims to solve two problems. First, officials hope to build a diverse mental and behavioral health workforce that can meet the needs of students throughout the districts the COE serves.

“Adolescent mental health is one of the key issues of our time, and it’s really with that context that we started to think about school-based mental health and wellness,” said Shanine Coats, executive director of SCOE’s School of Education. “We have a Centers of Wellness Initiative, and it’s designed to provide mental health resources and supports to our school sites. The ultimate goal of that initiative is to have a mental health clinician in every school in Sacramento County. As we were building that initiative — which is currently in 60 schools here in Sacramento County — we knew that we were not going to be able to fulfill that mission of serving our students because we didn’t have a pipeline of diverse, representative, fully trained mental health practitioners ready to go. That’s how the career pipeline was born — trying to figure out how do we meet the need of our students and do it in a culturally responsive way?”

The second goal is to remove barriers including unpaid internships and lack of mentorship for students by offering paid, supported pathways from high school through licensure. Participants progress through stages including high school exploration, college internships, graduate clinical training and full-time employment in Sacramento County schools.

Common barriers were identified through interviews with people who were on the mental behavioral health career track. One was simple: students simply don’t know much about careers in mental health.

“That’s why we developed our summer offerings, where we partner with community-based organizations and some local districts to really do a deeper dive for students on mental health and wellness,” Coats said. “It’s an entry into the career pathway and peer-to-peer mentorship. And then we also do some college and career guidance for them there, which was student led and designed.”

Launched in June 2023, the Career Paths to Success Summer Program provides rising juniors, seniors and recent high school graduates the opportunity to complete 25 hours of career development training while earning a stipend for completing the program.

For many students who have the drive to enter the field, one crucial barrier comes up later: the requirement to complete residency or internship hours. Many of these opportunities are unpaid, or paid very little, which pushes those from underprivileged backgrounds away from a field where their life experience is sorely needed.

“The reason that this was important is that we found that one of the barriers to diversifying representation is that folks were primarily having to have unpaid internships to fulfill their requirements. And then there weren’t enough internships available on school campuses. We really wanted to fill that gap,” Coats said. “When we cast a broader net, we open the career up to folks who have lived experiences, folks who may have experienced or have adverse childhood experiences or folks who have had to navigate a health system. They’re able to bring a cultural relevance in meeting the needs at the school sites, and they’re able to have a trauma-informed lens as well. I think it just rounds out any career field when you have that diverse representation, because that means voices are at the table that help to shape and define what those supportive services can look like and the approach to those services.”

Research shows that students who participate in career pathway programs are more likely to complete the A-G courses needed for admission to California’s public colleges and universities and have higher rates of attendance and engagement, among other positive outcomes.

In Sacramento County, local schools have also noticed improved climates as more students have their mental health needs addressed as a result of the mental health and wellness pathway.

“The research shows that academic success and mental health and wellness are inextricably linked,” Coats said. “I’m taken care of if I have my basic needs met; if I’m supported, then I’m able to focus on how I can achieve in this course or that course. I can say that from the qualitative feedback that we’ve received from our schools and districts, that they are noticing and have noticed a change in their campuses based on having the mental health supports there.”

Additionally, the majority of students who participate are going on to pursue a career in the field. Coats said surveys of students who participated in the high school summer program show many went on to college and decided on either social work or a related field. Among those who became peer-to-peer mentors, 97 percent reported they were determined to stay in the field when asked a year later.

SCOE is now working on a regional web-based tool where students will be able to access resources to gain an understanding of the mental behavioral health career path and explore if it will be a good fit for them. Coats said the new resource will hopefully be ready by this summer.