CalMHSA-Motivo Partnership Spotlight
Strengthening California’s Behavioral Health Workforce Through Strategic Supervision Alignment
CalMHSA-Motivo Partnership Spotlight
Strengthening California’s Behavioral Health Workforce Through Strategic Supervision Alignment
Executive summary
California’s behavioral health system faces a critical workforce shortage, with 54% of therapists never completing the licensure process, resulting in 25,000 lost potential therapists annually.
To address this challenge, CalMHSA partnered with Motivo Health to develop a targeted supervision model specifically designed for county behavioral health programs. The partnership delivers evidence-based supervision from county-experienced supervisors, ensuring consistent coverage and accelerated licensure completion.
0
active supervisees across California counties
0
supervision hours delivered (equivalent to 300K+ patient care hours)
0
County participations
0
Net Promoter Score, reflecting superior satisfaction and professional development outcomes
The challenge:
A workforce in crisis
The challenge:
A workforce in crisis
California’s county behavioral health systems face unprecedented staffing challenges that directly impact service delivery to vulnerable populations. The core problems include:
54% of therapists never complete the licensure process
Consistent supervision gaps during workforce turnover
Limited access to supervisors with county behavioral health expertise
25,000 potential therapists lost annually
Impact on counties:
Counties struggle to maintain adequate supervision coverage while serving high-acuity populations.
The challenge is particularly acute for:
Large counties managing extensive caseloads with limited supervisor resources
Rural counties facing geographic isolation and limited local expertise
All counties requiring specialized knowledge of Medi-Cal populations and county-specific service delivery models
The consequences extend beyond staffing metrics — vulnerable populations remain underserved while counties face mounting pressure to deliver quality behavioral health services with insufficient licensed professionals.
For example, in Lake County, only two fully licensed professionals were available for all direct services and supervision — leading to burnout, limited licensure opportunities, and slowed service capacity.
The solution:
Evidence-based supervision at scale
The solution:
Evidence-based supervision at scale
Motivo’s network of supervisors have experience in a variety of clinical settings, including but not limited to:
County Behavioral Health
Community Mental Health Center
Correctional facility, and more
Their experiences along with their specialties allow Motivo to provide supervisors familiar with evidence-based practices such as:
Assertive Community Treatment (ACT)
Forensic Assertive Community Treatment (FACT)
Fully Fidelity Wrap
Lake County: Rural excellence
Challenge:
Supporting early career clinicians in a challenging rural environment with limited local resources and geographic isolation.
Solution:
Patient, encouraging supervision approach specifically tailored for new clinicians working in rural settings with specialized support protocols.
Results:
Internship placements increased 200% (from 5 to 15), enabling more direct services during supervision (FY 2024–2025 to date, LCBHS).
Testimonial:
“Maya has been instrumental to my learning process as an associate clinical social worker. Her expertise, encouraging nature, and compassion have shown throughout her interactions.“
— Lake County Associate
Lake County Behavioral Health shared their experience with us
Encouragement to other counties:
“You won’t regret it. Do it. For small and rural counties especially, this partnership fills critical gaps, eases burnout, and makes supervision financially sustainable.“
Measured outcomes:
With Motivo’s virtual supervision in place, LCBHS tripled our internship placements — a 200% increase from 5 to 15 — so trainees and pre-licensed professionals can deliver direct services while receiving high-quality clinical supervision. Since FY 2023–2024, we have increased total billable services provided by 66%. We also executed agreements with four additional colleges and universities to grow our pipeline; we’ve paused further agreements only because we’ve run out of physical space for interns to see clients and to be housed in offices.
— April Giambra
Deputy Director, Lake County Behavioral Health
San Joaquin County: Hybrid model excellence
Challenge:
Balancing internal supervision capacity with growing demand while addressing role conflicts between supervision and management responsibilities.
Solution:
Strategic hybrid approach combining internal supervisors with Motivo’s external supervision to optimize both consistency and clinical development focus.
Results:
Enhanced supervisee confidence through role clarity and consistent supervision availability, strengthening the county’s reputation as a reliable training destination.
San Joaquin County shared their experience with us
Encouragement to other counties:
“It’s been a really good partnership for us… The online system for tracking is really good… everything in practice, and the flow is really good… everything is just pretty smooth.“
Good match with county specific expertise:
Working in county behavioral health is a whole lot different than working in a lot of other settings… it’s good to know that your supervisor’s been through similar stuff and seen similar stuff.
— Tyler Moran
Chief Mental Health Clinician, San Joaquin
The results
0
Supervisees served
0+
patient care hours supported through supervision delivery
0
NPS score
0
County participations
0
Supervision hours delivered
Key differentiators
Key differentiators
The CalMHSA-Motivo partnership delivers unique value through four critical differentiators:
Instant access to 550+ vetted supervisors in the state of California
Matches in under 5 days, with a 95% success rate
Built-in compliance, documentation, and scheduling support that frees your licensed staff for patient care
Net Promoter Score of 72 demonstrates exceptional supervisee satisfaction, professional development outcomes, and program effectiveness.
Call to action:
Strengthen your county’s behavioral health workforce
Call to action:
Strengthen your county’s behavioral health workforce
The CalMHSA-Motivo partnership provides a proven solution for addressing supervision gaps and accelerating clinician licensure completion. With demonstrated success across diverse county contexts — from large urban systems to rural communities — this evidence-based model offers immediate implementation potential.
Ready to enhance your county’s behavioral health supervision capacity?
Contact CalMHSA today to learn how this established partnership model can address your specific supervision challenges and support workforce development objectives
Join the nine active counties already benefiting from this scalable, high-quality supervision solution.
For next steps, reach out to:
Lucero Robles,
Senior Director, Quality Assurance
Outside California? No problem!
Please reach out and connect if you would like to hear more about Motivo, the work we are doing, and how we may be able to assist your organization with clinical supervision right now.
We solve
clinical supervision