FEATURED: Sen. Morgan LaMantia, D-South Padre Island, speaks with journalists on Thursday, August 1, 2024 at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley’s Institute of Neuroscience in Harlingen. The Senate District 27 state lawmaker was on hand to announce that the LaMantia family is pledging $1 million to initiate programs at universities in south and west Texas, including UTRGV, to help increase skilled mental health professionals, such as Licensed Clinical Social Workers. These professionals are authorized to assess, diagnose and treat individuals and families of all ages and economic groups in the Rio Grande Valley for behavioral disorders, addictions, severe mental illness and serious emotional disturbances.
Photograph By DAVID PIKE
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Sen. LaMantia announces $1 million pledge by LaMantia family to initiate programs at south and west Texas universities, including the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, to increase number of advanced skilled mental health professionals
By MELISSA VÁSQUEZ
In an effort to address the growing need for mental health professionals in the Rio Grande Valley, Texas Sen. Morgan LaMantia on Thursday, August 1, 2024, announced that The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), Stars Scholarship Fund and the LaMantia family are joining forces to increase the number of Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSWs) serving the region.
Stars stands for the South Texas Academic Rising Scholars (Stars) Scholarship Fund, founded in 2002.
During a press conference held at UTRGV’s Institute of Neuroscience in Harlingen, LaMantia, D-South Padre Island, who also serves as board chairperson of Stars, announced that the scholarship fund and the LaMantia family are gifting $130,000 to UTRGV to launch a new program.
UTRGV will also provide additional support, thereby enhancing this initiative designed to assist UTRGV Master of Science in Social Work graduates in becoming LCSWs.
While UTRGV will be the first school to implement the program, LaMantia family members at the event also announced they are pledging $1 million to initiate similar programs at other universities in south and west Texas, ensuring continued support and expansion.
In addition to Sen. LaMantia, other LaMantia family members at the news conference included her mother Linda LaMantia and father Steve LaMantia, aunt Val LaMantia, uncles Greg LaMantia and UTRGV president Dr. Guy Bailey, and cousins Lisa Peisen and Mary Lambert.
“Every barrier we remove brings us one step closer to a community where mental health services are accessible and effective for all,” Sen. LaMantia said. “By supporting the next generation of social workers, we’re aligning our South Texas communities with the skilled professionals we need to turn hope into action, and challenges into progress.”
Interested individuals are encouraged to contact the UTRGV School of Social Work at (956) 665-3575 for more information.
Bailey: “Together, we are creating a brighter future for the Valley.”
Bailey said the joint effort underscores the remarkable potential of the university’s alliances in transforming both student lives and community well-being.
“This partnership is the best of both worlds, offering invaluable support to our students while making a significant impact on our community,” he said. “By making the path to becoming an LCSW more accessible, we are not just aiding our students, but also enhancing quality of life across the Rio Grande Valley. Together, we are creating a brighter future for the Valley.”
Through his marriage on November 7, 2020 to Val LaMantia, a philanthropist and business leader, Bailey is an uncle to Sen. LaMantia.
Sen. LaMantia was elected to the Texas Senate in 2022 and is the first woman to represent the district, which serves South Texas and the Coastal Bend.
She is seeking election to a four-year term.
LaMantia is facing Adam Hinojosa, a Republican from Corpus Christi, in the the Tuesday, November 5, 2024 general election, in a rematch from 2022, when LaMantia won by the slightest of margins.
Addressing Barriers
LCSWs hold the highest level of licensure in social work, qualifying them as skilled mental health professionals authorized to assess, diagnose and treat individuals and families of all ages and economic groups.
However, the process to become an LCSW can be both difficult and expensive, so this partnership helps remove the logistical and financial barriers that often deter students from pursuing this path.
The requirements to become an LCSW in Texas include:
• Holding a Master of Social Work (MSW) degree and being a Licensed Master Social Worker (LMSW);
• Completing 3,000 hours of supervised professional clinical practice in 2-4 years;
• Receiving a minimum of 100 hours of supervision by a licensed Texas LCSW supervisor; and
• Passing the state licensing exam.
Financial Help
Most aspiring to be LCSWs face costs of about $12,500 for the full 100 hours of required supervision.
The new program will pay 80 percent of those expenses, leaving students responsible for approximately $2,000 for 100 hours of supervision over two and a half years.
Additionally, faculty from the UTRGV School of Social Work who are Board Approved Supervisors (LCSW-S) will provide supervision, making it easier for students to obtain the necessary hours from instructors they already know and trust.
When the required training is complete, the program will also cover each student’s $129 licensing exam fee. The program, available exclusively to UTRGV students, is set to begin this fall with an inaugural cohort of 36 students.
The goal is that in two and a half years, the program will produce more culturally and linguistically competent LCSWs who serve individuals and families in the Valley.
Licensed Clinical Social Workers Treat Vulnerable Populations
Licensed Clinical Social Workers are uniquely qualified by their skills and training in health, mental health, diversity and social issues to treat vulnerable populations. They address a range of issues, including behavioral disorders, addictions, serious mental illness and serious emotional disturbances.
• Behavioral health disorders, or mental illnesses, affect the way you think and behave. They change your mood and can make it difficult to function at home, work, school or in your community. It’s important to note that having poor mental health doesn’t always mean you have a behavioral health disorder.
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22295-mental-health-disorders
• Many people consider addiction to be a problem of personal weakness, initiated for self-gratification and continued because of an unwillingness or lack of sufficient willpower to stop. However, within the medical and scientific communities, the notion that pleasure-seeking exclusively drives addiction has fallen by the wayside.
Clinicians and scientists alike now think that many people engage in potentially addictive activities to escape discomfort — both physical and emotional. People typically engage in psychoactive experiences to feel good and to feel better. The roots of addiction reside in activities associated with sensation seeking and self-medication.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/what-is-addiction-2-2017061914490
• Serious mental illnesses are common in the United States. It is estimated that more than one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness (57.8 million in 2021). Mental illnesses include many different conditions that vary in degree of severity, ranging from mild to moderate to severe.
Two broad categories can be used to describe these conditions: Any Mental Illness (AMI) and Serious Mental Illness (SMI). AMI encompasses all recognized mental illnesses. SMI is a smaller and more severe subset of AMI. Additional information on mental illnesses can be found on the NIMH Health Topics Pages.
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness• Children with Severe Emotional Disturbance (SED) are persons who are under the age of 18, who have had a diagnosable mental, behavioral or emotional disorder of sufficient duration to meet diagnostic criteria specified within DSM-V, that resulted in functional impairment which substantially interferes with or limits the child’s role or functioning in family, school or community activities.
https://ccfhh.org/what-is-serious-emotional-disturbance-sed/
The services of Licensed Clinical Social Workers encompass individual, marital, couple, family and group therapy, mediation, counseling, supportive counseling, direct practice and psychotherapy.
About Stars Scholarship Fund
Stars Scholarship Fund is a non-profit organization committed to promoting access to and success in higher education for all students in the community. Based in McAllen, Stars offers scholarships to students from South and West Texas who are dedicated to completing a degree at an accredited college or university.
To date, Stars Scholarship Fund has awarded more than $39 million in scholarships to more than 19,000 students since its inception in 2002. Thanks to the support of L&F Distributors, which covers all operating expenses, Stars can apply 100 percent of funds raised directly to scholarships.
Through scholarships and community engagement, Stars strives to empower students to achieve their academic and professional dreams, fostering a brighter future for all.
For more information on Stars Scholarship Fund, visit the website at http://www.StarsScholarship.org.
About UTRGV
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) was created by the Texas Legislature in 2013 as the first major public university of the 21st century in Texas. This transformative initiative provided the opportunity to expand educational opportunities in the Rio Grande Valley, including a new School of Medicine, and made it possible for residents of the region to benefit from the Permanent University Fund – a public endowment contributing support to the University of Texas System and other institutions.
UTRGV has campuses and off-campus research and teaching sites throughout the Rio Grande Valley including in Boca Chica Beach, Brownsville (formerly The University of Texas at Brownsville campus), Edinburg (formerly The University of Texas-Pan American campus), Harlingen, Weslaco, McAllen, Port Isabel, Rio Grande City, and South Padre Island.
UTRGV, a comprehensive academic institution, enrolled its first class in the fall of 2015, and the School of Medicine welcomed its first class in the summer of 2016.
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David A. Díaz contributed to this article. For more on this and other Texas legislative news stories that affect the Rio Grande Valley metropolitan region, please log on to Titans of the Texas Legislature(TitansoftheTexasLegislature.com).
