We are so excited to win Best of State in Mental Health Education for 2024!
For this award, UCEBT's nomination was reviewed by a panel of judges specific to the education division. Judges were selected from all over Utah and volunteer their time to review and score applications. Each judge has been recommended by a Utah Chamber of Commerce, an industry association, or a Utah mayor's office, as being a leader or expert in their particular field.
Nominees are judged on three criteria.
- Achievement in the field of endeavor:
- Overall quality and excellence of the nominee's performance, products or services.
- Demonstrated achievement and excellence.
- Evidence of superior results and outcomes.
- Innovation or creativity in approaches, techniques, methods or processes.
- Achieved superior results and created positive differentiation from others within our field.
- Utilized innovation or creativity in approaches, techniques, methods or processes.
- Contribution to improving the quality of life in Utah.
- Improved the quality of life in Utah.
- Family-friendly employment policies and opportunities.
- Contribution to a strong economy, cultural contributions, or improving the quality of life in a neighborhood, community, city, or the state.
Educating Students
The UCEBT Training Program has been a cornerstone our our organization since its inception. In fact, UCEBT was originally founded, in part, to provide Dr. Sheila Crowell's students with more opportunities to grow thier experience with evidence based practices, specifically (at the time) Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT).
This program provides high-quality training and expert supervision, allowing students to sample a wide variety of interests, working within our multiple clinical programs, and grow in the direction of their passion. In fact, upon completing their education and licensure, most of our post-doctoral trainees return to work at UCEBT as full-time clinicians.
Students in the training program also get to experience UCEBT's unique team model; this allows for access to peer consultation, case conceptualization, experience with complex clients, and training in risk management. This placement is also unique in the range of evidence-based protocols and modalities to which students gain exposure, including ACT, CBT, DBT, prolonged exposure, CPT, and TF-CBT. Our client population varies widely. We treat a range of anxiety disorders, depression, gender dysphoria, OCD, trauma, chronic pain, school refusal, etc. Many UCEBT cases are diagnostically complex, including severe psychopathology and higher risk cases.
Students are trained in both in-person and telehealth settings. UCEBT supports students in making the best choice for their training and personal health. We do not pressure them into any particular modality. Further, a student's schedule at UCEBT is relatively flexible, allowing them to see clients, attend consultation meetings, and manage their school work. UCEBT offers a professional development fund for students to use for training, books, gas money, and more. In addition to psychology students, we have also had students of psychiatric nursing in our training program.
UCEBT offers students the opportunity to participate in either 1 or 2 treatment teams over the year. One treatment team translates to roughly 8-12 hours per week, and 2 treatment teams translates to 14-16 hours per week.
Since our 2013 inception, we have had 35 doctoral and 17 postdoctoral students complete our training program, each from 1 to 2 years in duration.
Educating Community
In 2023, our experts in DBT filmed over 32 hours of teaching the same skills that are taught in group skills classes. These videos have been since edited and organized into an easy-to-follow curriculum whereby individuals can learn these skills asynchronously through an online Learning Management System.
The purpose of this project is to provide the same DBT skills classes that we provide as part of our comprehensive DBT program to individuals who are either in therapy elsewhere (for example, with a therapist who does not have access to a full program) or who have transitioned out of therapy and need reinforcing skills training.
Since our launch in 2023, we’ve had over 151 students enrolled in our online DBT Skills Course. Our goal for 2024 is to include more interactive elements to the course with downloadable handouts and additional resources.
Educating Providers
Continuing Education Program
As a center that is focused on evidence-based treatments, our trainings always present the latest research on a variety of mental health issues as well as what the research says about how to best apply these findings with clients. While our trainings are free to attend, those who wish to receive continuing education credit toward their licensure pay a fee that goes toward providing pro bono care at our center.
UCEBT provides trainings on highly specialized topics to better serve the treatment complex cases. Here is a list of our free and Continuing Education trainings for therapists from just this past year (2023) alone:
- Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) Diagnosis in Adolescents and Young Adults
- Using ACT and Internal Family Systems (IFS) to Address Burnout and Compassion Fatigue
- Ethical Guidelines for Supervisory Competence: From Theory to Practice
- Introduction to Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT)
- Culturally-Specific Contextualism in Evidence-Based Treatments
- RODBT vs. DBT: Choosing the Most Effective Approach for Your Clients
- Clinician-Parent Relationship: Effective Practices for Supporting Parent Engagement and Communication
In 2024, so far we are scheduled to be offering trainings on the following topics (among others):
- Beyond the Surface: A Clinician's Toolkit for Dementia Recognition and Intervention
- Breaking the Silence about Sex: How to Talk to Your Clients About Sex, Sexual Health, and Sexual Concerns
- Ketamine-Assisted Psychotherapy: Latest Research, Mechanisms, and Best Practices in Clinical Applications
Most of our presenters are post-doctoral level, licensed clinical psychologists. Because of the high caliber education and training that we provide, in 2023, UCEBT completed a rigorous application and screening process, and became approved by the American Psychological Association (APA) to sponsor continuing education for psychologists nationwide.
However, not only have our trainings provided education opportunities for fellow psychologists, all of our CE trainings have also received approval from organizations that support other types of licensed mental health professionals, too: National Association of Social Workers—Utah Chapter, Utah Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, and Utah Mental Health Counselors Association. Further, this year, with the Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS®) training (see “Contribution to improving the quality of life in Utah” section), we are also seeking approval for Occupational Therapists and Behavior Analysts.
In 2023, we awarded 207 continuing education certificates to members of our professional mental health community and had over 1623 registrants. Further, all of our trainings are published to YouTube for anyone to view for free. In 2023 alone, without any advertisements or paid sponsorship, our trainings had 20,700 views and 3,844 hours of watch time, reaching individuals from all over the world.
UCLA PEERS Certification Training
Further, UCEBT has found there to be such a huge need for increased autism services in Utah, that we have decided to host the full 3-day training, opening it up to any relevant provider including: psychologists, social workers, marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, occupational therapists, speech pathologists, recreational therapists, behavior analysts, as well as students in these fields, too. For this 3-day training event, UCEBT will be hosting a UCLA Certified PEERS® Trainer. We will be hosting this training both in-person and virtually to increase access to this certification.
Autism Screening
Finally, this past year, our Assessment and Testing Program has provided training to day-care centers, teaching staff how to administer and interpret foundational screeners for autism. These efforts helped day-care staff to identify and recommend further diagnostic services to children who may be experiencing challenges due to being on the autism spectrum.
We are honored to have received this award. And we look forward to continue providing high quality mental health education to our community!
