September 22, 2025
With a statewide behavioral crisis and severe staffing crisis, United We Heal has developed a pathway for behavioral health workers to advance in their careers by apprenticing toward a Master’s degree in Counseling, at no cost to them.
Portland, OR — United We Heal Oregon, a behavioral health nonprofit training trust, is offering an innovative apprenticeship program providing a free master’s degree pathway to fill critical behavioral health positions across the state of Oregon. Because of the lack of workers with a Qualified Mental Health Professional credential, many behavioral health positions are going unfilled, leading to unsustainable caseloads, high rates of care provider turnover, long waits for treatment, and lack of culturally relevant care. Oregon ranks the worst in the country for many mental health outcomes, having only 7% of the needed QMHPs.The apprenticeship program provides behavioral health staff a route to the QMHP credential through a free graduate degree in mental health counseling, with paid practicum and internship—helping staff to advance their careers and employers to fill much-needed, vacant positions.
“United We Heal provides a great benefit for union members to advance in their careers, fundamentally ensuring a training pathway for higher level positions in the industry.”
– Joe Baessler, Executive Director Oregon AFSCME
Many individuals working in today’s behavioral health workforce have come to this work through lived experiences like houselessness, substance use disorder, and mental health challenges; experiences that add immense value, compassion, and cultural relevance to the services they provide. However, relevant life experiences like these often come with barriers —barriers that limit workers’ potential when it comes to career advancement and economic opportunity.
“Our programs operate on the basis that everyone deserves the opportunity to advance their career and obtain higher education without sacrificing their jobs and incurring major financial debt. These programs are particularly crucial now that the higher ed landscape is changing with major revisions to student loan options. Programs like ours increase opportunities for individuals from underserved communities to pursue advanced credentials, improving the quality of care in those communities,” said Sarah Drake, United We Heal’s Director of Career Pathways.
“Taking on the demands of graduate school is hard enough without the added expenses, challenges, and burdens it provides folks. The prospect of that size of student loans might have these workers not even think of graduate school as an opportunity that they should pursue,” remarks Dave Kohler, People & Culture Office with Cascadia Health, one of United We Heal’s largest and longest-standing training agents.
United We Heal is focused on providing sustainable opportunities that overcome those barriers, all the while ensuring participants can maintain a work-life balance. “After undergrad, I found myself at the upper limits of what I could accomplish professionally. It’s truly humbling to go from an individual experiencing acute addiction to someone who will be offering counseling services in the not-too-distant future,” said Jay Hill, a QMHP Apprentice and Mental Health Aide at Cascadia Health.
United We Heal has been offering much-needed apprenticeships in the behavioral health sector for four years, with apprenticeships for Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor (CADC) and Qualified Mental Health Associate (QMHA) certifications. Adding a master’s level Qualified Mental Health Professional (QMHP) certification is the next step in United We Heal’s vision of a stronger and more skilled behavioral health workforce that more accurately represents the populations it serves.
“The QMHP pathway will provide our partner employers with much-needed credentialed workers to fill roles they have struggled to fill as this crisis has grown,” said Jessi Frothingham, United We Heal’s QMHP Program Manager. The program is offered at zero cost to the employer, and includes reimbursement for the cost of clinical supervision and wages.
United We Heal provides sustainable pathways for individuals to obtain certifications needed for higher-level healthcare employment to end the staffing crisis in the healthcare sector and improve outcomes for Oregonians in need. We have supported the career advancement of over 300 healthcare professionals through free training and apprenticeships, partnered with 20 employers, and operate in 18 counties across Oregon.
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