State Roundtable Joint Statement on the Governor's Budget

Delta Center California is a 2.5-year initiative led by JSI, with support from the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), that brings together behavioral health and primary care leaders to accelerate care improvement and integration through policy and practice change. The listed organizations are a part of the State Policy and Partnership Roundtable within Delta Center California, a collective that seeks to advance behavioral health and primary care integration policy in the state. 

Subject: Key health care, primary care, and behavioral health organizations support Governor Newsom's commitment to California's health workforce 

Dear Governor Newsom,

Our organizations are writing to collectively applaud your administration’s commitment to supporting the health care workforce in the proposed 2022-2023 California Budget. These investments represent a crucial step in bolstering the workforce that cares for our state and that has weathered a period of sustained crisis. 

The funding in the proposed budget comes at a time when an already strained behavioral health and primary care workforce contends with a confluence of factors, including burnout, recovery efforts, the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on health and wellbeing, and myriad mental and physical health sequelae in our state’s populace. Many issues, such as the struggle and opportunity to ensure our state's health workforce reflects our communities, predate the current pandemic. 

These challenges require a multi-pronged approach to ensure the workforce is adequately resourced and prepared to care for all Californians as we continue to navigate an evolving public health landscape. We support the approach described in the proposed California Budget, including strategies to retain our current health care workforce, recruit more individuals, provide opportunities for advancement, and ensure that health care jobs pay fair, livable wages. 

With the proposed initiatives, the state would be poised to bring a vital influx of providers into the health care workforce at various levels: through pipeline projects, enhanced recruitment, training programs, and career advancement strategies. We also support your administration’s commitment to developing a culturally and ethnically inclusive workforce that reflects the diversity of California and will better serve Californians and their families. 

Through the Delta Center California initiative, the State Roundtable (comprised of representatives of the undersigned organizations) is also working collectively to advance progress in the workforce realm via projects spanning career pathways for peer supporters, fostering a representative workforce for integrated behavioral health and primary care, and elevating best practices for collecting race, ethnicity, language, sexual orientation, and gender identity data in the workforce. 

We look forward to seeing how these investments generate a more robust and better supported workforce that can address California’s needs and advance health equity. 

Sincerely, 

CaliforniaHealth+ Advocates

California Alliance of Child and Family Services

California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems (CAPH)

California Behavioral Health Directors Association (CBHDA)

California Council of Community Behavioral Health Agencies (CBHA)

California Institute for Behavioral Health Solutions (CIBHS)

Local Health Plans of California (LHPC)

National Alliance on Mental Illness California