Becker to train mental health professionals with $40K grant

Photo | Grant Welker Becker College's Cedar Hall in Worcester

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A foundation's $40,000 donation to Becker College's psychology program will help address a shortage of mental health professionals in Central Massachusetts.

The Falmouth-based Quell Foundation will award the money through scholarships to undergraduate psychology students who have committed to pursuing careers in mental health and to students in the mental health counseling master's program.

Students in the mental health counseling program have access to the Counselor Training Clinic, an outpatient facility at Becker's Leicester campus, where they provide low-cost counseling to the community under supervision of licensed mental health professionals.

According to the Quell Foundation, its Bridge the Gap scholarships are awarded each year for a student in an amount between $1,000 and $2,000. The foundation's mission is to assist those with mental illness, through helping create a pipeline of mental health professionals, suicide and incarceration prevention, and increasing access to mental health services.

“By supporting our students in their pursuit of a career in the mental health field, the Quell Foundation joins Becker College in our efforts to educate and train the next generation of mental health professionals, and provide counseling resources to the community through our training clinic," said Beth Greenberg, an associate professor of psychology at Becker and the program coordinator of the master of arts in mental health counseling.