University of Oregon to create new institute for behavioral health with $425 million gift
The University of Oregon announced Tuesday it will create a new institute focused on children's behavioral and mental health, with the help of a $425 million gift.
It will be called the Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health, named for its donors, Connie and Steve Balmer, co-founders of Ballmer Group Philanthropy, and will be based in Portland. The UO's Board of Trustees is expected to soon review a purchase agreement for the former Concordia University campus in northeast Portland for the future institute.
The Ballmer Institute is to be created in light of extreme mental and behavioral health issues children across Oregon and the nation are experiencing. For years, teachers and staff in K-12 schools have called it a mounting crisis — one that has only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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“A bold effort is needed to address the behavioral and mental health needs of our youth," UO President Michael Schill said in the announcement. "This gift is monumental. It enables UO researchers and experts to build on a collective vision to develop innovative and scalable programs, and to address the need for a sustainable workforce that can work directly with our children.”
Provost Patrick Phillips stated during a press conference Tuesday that the graduates from the new institute are going to be able to provide "a new level of care that simply doesn't exist now. And its going to hopefully serve our part in addressing what is a complex problem ... ."
A growing mental health crisis
Children experiencing mental and behavioral health issues has been a growing concern for several years. The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows that between 2016 and 2019, 9.4% of children aged 3 to 17 had anxiety, or approximately 5.8 million. During that same time, 8.9% (approximately 5.5 million) had behavior problems and 4.4% (approximately 2.7 million) had depression. In many cases, a child who had one of these issues was more likely to have additional stacked issues.
A recent national report showed that Oregon ranked 47th for student mental health.
Previous coverage: US schools failing in fight against youth mental health crisis, new report card finds
"We know that adolescence, even before the pandemic, is the period of life where we see the greatest risk for onset of mental and behavioral health disorders," Jennifer Pfeifer, a UO psychology professor, said Tuesday. "In the state of Oregon, in the last year alone, nearly 1 in 5 youth aged 12 to 17 experienced a major depressive episode. Beyond this, more than half are not getting the care they need."
This new UO institute will work toward creating a new type of workforce of professionals who are trained to directly address these issues and get ahead of this national issue. It will pull together UO research programs and partner with Oregon's public schools and families and community groups to create intervention and treatment programs for K-12 students.
As part of this, UO will propose a new degree program and certificate program to help get people into schools and intervening quickly. It is also meant to help those already working in schools to up their qualifications and learn how to start helping their students with behavioral issues right away.
"We feel the same urgency as the rest of America," said Randy Kamphaus, acting executive director of the Ballmer Institute. "We're in conversations now to start a workshop program this summer with our public schools so we can serve schools as quickly as possible."
UO anticipates opening the yearlong certificate program later this year, and the first class of 200 students for the new bachelor's program will be fall 2023.
"One of the reasons we're focusing on the certificate program first and then rolling out the undergraduate degree ... is because we want to reach professionals who are working with children right now, and that means, right now, where they're at," said Laura Lee McIntyre, Castle-McIntosh-Knight professor and school psychology program co-director at UO.
Partnering with Portland schools
Being based in Portland, UO's new institute is already partnering with the state's largest district with more than 49,000 students: Portland Public Schools.
“The global pandemic has only amplified the mental and behavioral health needs of studentshere in Portland and across the country,” Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero said. “School districts are often ill-capacitated to adequately address these barriers to learning. We have a responsibility to find innovative ways to support the holistic needs of our students and are excited for our groundbreaking partnership with the Ballmer Institute.”
Of the $425 million, $100 million will go toward an endowment fund for Oregonians to help keep the workforce learning here as a direct pipeline into Oregon schools.
Donor Connie Ballmer graduated from the University of Oregon and served on the Board of Trustees from 2014 to 2021. She said she and Steve are excited to help bring the institute to life, and create partnerships to combat the issue.
“Right now, the need for behavioral health services across our country is at critical levels, and there is an opportunity to strengthen and enhance the behavioral health system so that it is set up to address every child’s needs — now and in the future,” she said.
Contact reporter Jordyn Brown at jbrown@registerguard.com or 541-246-4264, and follow her on Twitter @thejordynbrown and Instagram @registerguard.
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This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: UO's Portland institute to focus on children's mental health
