News Brief: RIC’s Institute for Education in Healthcare Honored

At the Governor’s Workforce Board’s annual awards ceremony on June 12, RIC’s Institute for Education in Healthcare (IEH) received the Career Pathways Advancement Award for its Certificate of Continuing Studies in behavioral health training program. The IEH is considered a leader in workforce development for the state’s healthcare industry. 

Commended for training nearly 1,000 healthcare workers, the 30-hour behavioral health training program is designed to boost the skill set of paraprofessionals and entry-level healthcare workers. Paraprofessionals learn to recognize behavioral health challenges among their clients and to seek referrals for care from nurses, social workers and others. Several employers – such as Thundermist Health Center and Crossroads – have incorporated this training.

RIC School of Business Dean and IEH founder Marianne Raimondo and Jenifer Giroux, the college’s vice president of corporate relations and professional studies, created the behavioral health training certificate program in 2016. Bethany Lewis and George Ladd, RIC associate professors of psychology, assisted in developing the curriculum.

“For the last 10 years, IEH has been working to upskill and advance the healthcare workforce in Rhode Island, especially by creating career pathways for frontline workers,” Raimondo says. “This award recognizes the behavioral training we provide for home healthcare workers who serve many of the state’s older adults. The training not only improved the competency of home healthcare certified nursing assistants but provided a pathway for increased wages. As these home healthcare workers are upskilled, it improves the quality of care they provide to their patients.”

In 2022 IEH Director Tonya Glantz launched a plan to present the certificate program in both English and Spanish among the state’s home care agencies. Overall, 47 cohorts of the program have been delivered: 28 in English and 19 in Spanish. 

Learn more about RIC’s certificate program in behavioral health training.