Overview
Section 1 of
House Bill 2024 (2025) requires Oregon Health Authority (OHA) to award grants to behavioral health providers to help foster staff recruitment and retention. Providers can use these grants for these education incentives:
- Scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students going into the behavioral health care field
- Loan forgiveness and repayment incentives
- Tuition assistance
- Stipends for students enrolled in graduate behavioral health care educational programs
OHA's Behavioral Health Workforce Incentives Program commits to distributing these grants to:
- Meet the needs of all Oregon communities,
- Reflect the communities served, and
- Support culturally and linguistically responsive, dynamic environments for behavioral health professionals.
Goals
These incentives aim to improve and expand Oregon's behavioral health system by increasing:
- Recruitment and retention, especially in rural, frontier and other high-need areas across the state.
- The number of individuals training for and entering the behavioral health workforce.
- Service capacity and capabilities for rural and underserved communities.
- Education and training that supports career advancement opportunities.
- Oregon's capacity to provide culturally responsive care that deeply embeds and promotes values of centering equity, destigmatizing services, restorative healing and community empowerment.