Perceptions with Impact
A Qualitative Study of African American College Students, Behavioral Health Careers, and the Naming Gap
This doctoral-level qualitative study identifies how perceptions, naming, exposure, and institutional translation shape access to behavioral health careers—particularly within Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) ecosystems and public health workforce pipelines.
Key Problem Addressed
Workforce shortages and equity gaps are driven not only by capacity, but by naming failures, perception gaps, and invisible labor across institutional systems.
- Behavioral Health Career Pathways
- Public Health Workforce & Equity
- Qualitative Methods in Health & Education
- Applied Qualitative Research (Health & Education)
- CCBHC Workforce Strategy Lab
- Leadership & Administration in Behavioral Health Systems
These are not generic citations. Each work is a foundational scholarly pillar that directly supports the premise of Perceptions with Impact and becomes required course material alongside the Voice Up book.
Lent, Brown, & Hackett – Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT)
Why Essential:
Establishes how self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and contextual supports shape career choice. Perceptions with Impact extends SCCT by showing how naming and perception failures block self-efficacy formation before choice is even possible.
Course Integration:
Students use SCCT as a baseline model, then apply Voice Up findings to identify where SCCT breaks down in real-world systems
SAMHSA – CCBHC Model & Workforce Expansion Framework
Why Essential:
Defines the national behavioral health access model driving workforce demand. Perceptions with Impact directly addresses why diverse talent pipelines fail to connect to this expansion.
Course Integration:
Used to ground courses in real policy and funding structures, ensuring academic work aligns with national systems
Betancourt et al. – Cultural Competence & Structural Inequity in Health Care
Why Essential:
Provides empirical grounding for how cultural misalignment and structural barriers reduce access and trust. Perceptions with Impact adds career pipeline implications.
Course Integration:
Students map cultural and structural barriers to specific workforce roles and career pathways
Yosso – Community Cultural Wealth
Why Essential:
Demonstrates that marginalized students bring significant forms of capital that institutions fail to recognize—directly supporting the Naming Gap identified in the dissertation.
Course Integration:
Students translate community cultural wealth into named, credentialed, and visible career pathways
Perceptions with Impact is unusually powerful because it simultaneously functions as:
Very few adjunct or visiting scholars can teach from a single work that legitimately spans research, policy, workforce, and implementation.
This book operationalizes the Voice Up approach by teaching students to:
All instruction is:
Required Real-World Work Product
Students produce deployable workforce artifacts (e.g., CCBHC pipeline maps, career naming guides, institutional intervention toolkits) for a real community partner.
Institutional Value
This is not hypothetical research: it is implementation-ready, policy-aware, and aligned to national behavioral health expansion priorities.