A community psychiatry nurse practitioner fellowship: Preparing nurse practitioners for mental health workforce expansion

The increasing need for psychiatry services in medically underserved communities has proven to be challenging for health care systems. Caring for this population is complex and can be overwhelming for the inexperienced provider. Proper utilization of psychiatric and mental health nurse practitioners in this setting can expedite meeting the mental health needs of the community. A postgraduate fellowship program that provides supervision and additional training specific to community psychiatry facilitates the transition from novice provider to experienced clinician while aiming to improve retention rates. In this Open Forum, the authors outline the structure of a federally qualified health center's Community Psychiatry Nurse Practitioner Fellowship.