Senior Advisor, Behavioral Health Workforce

Department Summary

The Practice Improvement and Consulting Department (PIC) is central to the National Council's goal of providing timely and meaningful technical assistance and consulting to community mental health and substance use services organizations and others serving the health of our nation.

Position Summary

As a Senior Advisor, for Behavioral Health Workforce efforts, you will serve as a senior strategist, subject matter expert, and implementer advancing national efforts to strengthen the behavioral health workforce. You will act as a trusted advisor to National Council leadership, staff, and members, including community-based behavioral health providers, Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs), Community Health Centers (CHCs) and rural health clinics (RHCs). In this capacity, you will support organizations in navigating workforce challenges, designing sustainable and innovative staffing models, and developing system-level solutions that expand capacity, reduce administrative burden, adopt technology solutions, and promote long-term workforce sustainability, preparing for the workforce of the future.

As a Senior Advisor, you bring deep knowledge of behavioral health workforce realities at the provider level, familiarity with state systems and regulatory environments and shifting policy landscape, and the ability to connect frontline operational needs with policy, program design, and implementation. You are a strategic thinker who can shape a vision, translate ideas into actionable plans, and drive progress forward in complex environments. This position is contingent upon continued project funding.

This is an individual contributor role without direct reports. While this position can be done remotely from anywhere in the US, you must primarily work our Washington, DC business hours of 8:30 AM to 5:00 PM ET.

Key Responsibilities

Training and Technical Assistance (TTA)

• Provide high-quality coaching, technical assistance, and training to CCBHCs, CHCss, RHCs, and other organizations on behavioral health workforce solutions, including workforce planning, role optimization, staffing models, supervision structures, and team-based care approaches.
• Serve as faculty and advisor for the CCBHC Transformation initiative and other workforce-focused learning communities, training series, and consultation offerings, including topics such as workforce pipelines, workforce extender models, clinical training capacity, licensure pathways, recruitment and retention strategies, and integrated care team optimization.
• Provide direct consultation to state agencies and behavioral health authorities on aligning state regulatory environments, Medicaid levers, and workforce stabilization funds with provider-level implementation to create a long-term, systemic sustainability.
• Develop high-quality workforce-related TTA materials, including issue briefs, planning tools, presentations, fact sheets, and implementation resources.
• Deliver customized virtual and onsite TTA on workforce readiness, implementing new workforce models, building training pipelines, and establishing sustainable workforce development practices.
• Collaborate with external workforce-focused TTA partners and consultants to ensure alignment, accuracy, and high-quality content across products and engagements.
• Build alignment across National Council teams delivering workforce-focused TTA to ensure consistent standards, streamlined processes, and effective, cohesive delivery.
• Monitor and assess the quality, alignment, and impact of external TTA providers and consultants delivering workforce-related content.
• Engage in external outreach to strengthen the National Council's visibility and leadership on behavioral health workforce issues; build and maintain relationships with providers, state leaders, academic partners, and national organizations.

Program Strategy and Implementation

• Partner with PIC leadership and project teams to inform the development of innovative and scalable workforce development strategies that strengthen behavioral health workforce capacity at the provider levels.
• Provide workforce subject matter expertise and innovation to support program and product design, incorporating best practices in adult learning, participant engagement, provider experience, and human-centered design to maximize TTA quality and implementation success.
• Advise colleagues across the National Council to ensure workforce insights and innovation inform cross-project alignment, organizational priorities, and external positioning.

Organizational Activities - Participate in other National Council activities

• Participate in outreach, relationship-building, and representation at workgroups, advisory panels, and national meetings.
• Attend occasional travel events, internal meetings and trainings as needed.

Required Qualifications

• 7+ years of relevant professional experience, including significant experience supporting behavioral health workforce development, workforce programs, training/education pipelines (apprenticeship and pathways models), or related system-improvement efforts
• Advanced knowledge of behavioral health workforce topics within community-based provider settings (e.g., CMHCs, CCBHCs, CHCss, SUD treatment programs), including staffing models, supervision requirements, licensure pathways, peer programs, and team-based care - with the ability to translate provider level realities into sustainable systems level change
• Proven experience advising and partnering with state-level agencies (e.g., SMHAs, SSAs, or Medicaid offices) and other external stakeholders to design, negotiate, and implement workforce development initiatives that align state regulatory frameworks with federal priorities and provider operational needs
• Experience working with multiple stakeholders to drive impact at a systems level, such as members, state associations, state agencies, national, state, provider and consumer associations, behavioral health organizations, technical assistance providers and consultants
• Experience designing and delivering training and technical assistance for various audiences, leveraging best practices in TTA and adult learning theory, participant engagement practices
• Demonstrated ability and advanced skill at group facilitation, bringing multiple stakeholders together around a common purpose and training individualized to the site and population.
• Successful experience as a change agent implementing quality improvement initiatives and health systems transformation efforts; ability to lead groups and individuals through planning, development and implementation of transformation efforts without formal authority or oversight
• Demonstrated knowledge and experience in mental health, substance use prevention, treatment, or recovery
• Adept at simultaneously managing multiple, complex projects in varying stages of development
• Dynamic presentation, public speaking and technical writing skills
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office - Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook
• Ability to travel up to 30% (e.g., project meetings, workforce convenings, conferences)

Preferred Qualifications

• Master's degree in a related field

Salary & Benefits

The salary range for this position is $151,200 to $198,900. Salary decisions within the range are based on experience, education and internal equity.

The National Council offers a comprehensive benefits package, which includes (but is not limited to):

• Medical, dental, vision, life and disability insurance
• 403(b) retirement plan with employer contributions after 1 year of service
• Paid time off, including vacation, sick, personal, floating holiday, bereavement and observed federal holidays
• Parental support benefits, including adoption, fertility and surrogacy reimbursement and two weeks paid parental leave
• Free unlimited Relias professional development courses
• Annual professional development and tuition reimbursement funds
• Calm Premium access

About Us

The vision of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing is to make mental wellbeing, including recovery from substance use challenges, a reality for everyone. Despite overwhelming need, nearly 30 million people across the U.S. do not have access to comprehensive mental health and substance use treatment.

Founded in 1969, the National Council is a 501(c)(3) membership organization that drives policy and social change on behalf of more than 3,200 mental health and substance use treatment organizations and the more than 15 million children, adults and families they serve. We advocate for policies to ensure equitable access to high-quality services. We build the capacity of mental health and substance use treatment organizations. And we promote greater understanding of mental wellbeing as a core component of comprehensive health and health care. Through our Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) program, we have trained more than 4.5 million people in the U.S. to identify, understand and respond to signs and symptoms of mental health and substance use challenges.

The National Council is growing to meet this moment. We've more than doubled our dedicated team to 240+ employees since 2020. Although we have office space in Washington, D.C., we operate as a remote-first organization, with employees working from their various locations across the United States.

The National Council is proud to be an equal-opportunity employer. We embrace individuals from all backgrounds and perspectives, welcoming people of all races, ethnicities, religions, genders, sexual orientations, and ages, as well as veterans, people with disabilities, and those with lived experiences in mental health and substance use challenges to apply. We are committed to fostering a welcoming environment and recruitment process for everyone. If you require accommodation during the application process, please contact us at Recruiter@thenationalcouncil.org.