A University of Montana health program that ensures rural areas have access to mental health care will be honored with a national award.

The National Rural Health Association will present a 2015 Rural Health Award to the Rural Behavior Health Primary Care Collaborative, a program of the Western Montana Area Health Education Center at the University of Montana.

The program relies on a federal grant and local entities to work with rural hospitals to bring self-sustaining psychologists and social workers to smaller areas.

Sara Laney, the project manager in Missoula, said the program is coming to the end of its three-year grant and has been successful at what it attempted.

“The aim was to effect behavioral change for chronic health conditions,” she said. “And another aim was to get these type of specialties into rural areas.”

The collaborative is a partnership among the health education center and critical access hospitals or community health centers in five Montana communities.

The program places psychologists and social workers in Kalispell, Libby, Plains, Deer Lodge and Glasgow to provide mental health-care services. Faculty members from the university provide remote supervision until they become licensed.

“What we have is a simple aim, but it’s hard to do,” Laney said. “It’s hard to find professionals who want to be in these rural areas and will stay. We are weaning them off grant funds and they will become self-sufficient. It’s already happened in Libby.”

The Northwest Community Health Center in Libby, Flathead Community Health Center in Kalispell and the Clark Fork Valley Hospital in Plains are the local entities working with the state to provide better health care (and sustainable business) to rural areas. Laney admits Kalispell isn’t quite as rural as the others, but the need was present.

“Programs like this are more common in urban areas,” Laney said. “But we wanted to get these going so doctors can make internal referrals.”

The grant ends at the end of April, but Laney and the Western Montana Area Health Education Center is looking to renew it for all five locations and would like to expand as well to Whitefish and Polson.

One of five regional Area Health Education Centers in Montana, the Western Montana branch is a grant-funded, not-for-profit organization committed to making quality health care more accessible to rural Montanans. 

It is based out of the University of Montana’s College of Health professions and Biomedical Sciences.