Become a State Certified Therapeutic Mentor!
The University of Massachusetts Boston is launching a new Community Health Worker Training with specialization in Therapeutic Mentoring program that may be of interest to mentoring practitioners, youth workers, and program leaders who are grappling with increasingly complex health and mental health needs among the young people and families they serve. Although housed at UMass Boston, the course content is broadly relevant for community-based professionals across settings who are working to promote health equity and connect youth and families to appropriate supports. The course can be taken for UMass credit or as a non-credit class, open to anyone.
Community health workers play a critical role at the intersection of health, education, and social services. They often serve as trusted bridges between systems and communities, helping individuals navigate resources, understand health information, and advocate for themselves. For mentoring programs, this role overlaps with many of the responsibilities we increasingly expect mentors and staff to shoulder: recognizing social determinants of health, responding to mental health concerns, supporting families around access to care, and partnering with schools and community agencies. A structured training in community health work can strengthen those capacities in ways that are directly applicable to mentoring practice and policy.
The new training offered through UMass Boston’s online professional development platform is designed for working adults and can be accessed from anywhere. The curriculum focuses on core competencies for community health workers, including communication and relationship-building, cultural humility, advocacy, care coordination, and understanding how structural inequities shape health outcomes. It aims to prepare participants to support individuals and communities in navigating complex systems of care, which is precisely where many mentoring programs now find themselves operating. For staff and mentors who are already embedded in youth-serving organizations, the course offers a way to deepen knowledge and skills without stepping away from their current roles.
For readers of the Chronicle, there are at least three reasons this training is worth attention.
- It aligns with the growing recognition that mentoring does not occur in a vacuum; it is embedded in an ecosystem of services and inequities that shape young people’s opportunities. Training that foregrounds social determinants of health, structural racism, and systems navigation can help mentoring practitioners situate their work within that broader context.
- Community health worker skills can complement and strengthen mentoring infrastructures. Staff who understand both developmental relationships and health systems are better positioned to support mentors, design appropriate referral pathways, and partner with schools, clinics, and community organizations.
- This kind of professional development can help build a more stable, skilled workforce in youth-serving roles, which has implications for program quality and sustainability.
Although the course is offered by UMass Boston, its online format and generalizable competency focus make it relevant well beyond one city or state. Programs in urban, suburban, and rural communities alike now report rising levels of mental health needs, family stress, and health-related barriers among youth. Investing in community health worker training for staff, and possibly for near-peer mentors or navigators, may be one concrete way to respond. For organizations interested in exploring this option, more information about the Community Health Worker Training program, including eligibility, structure, and registration details, is available through UMass Boston’s professional development site.
