The need for mental and behavioral health providers keeps growing, but professionals in the field find themselves with less resources to spread out to more patients. Whether it’s staying up to date on professional development or learning to use new technology, we’ve compiled some free resources for mental and behavioral health providers.

Mental Health Literacy

The CDC outlines these three free university courses about communication, learning and teaching mental health literacy. Effective communication about mental health and educating patients on their condition can go a long way towards treatment effectiveness. https://www.cdc.gov/healthliteracy/non-cdc-training.html

The Mind Remake Project

While some websites offer a list of resources, most of them only outline various government and non-profit websites for various disorders and specialties, or apps and phone numbers for patients without therapists. They’re useful, but by now you probably know them by heart. The Mind Remake Project offers a list with books, webinars, podcasts, worksheets and handouts for many different types of patients and specialties.
https://mindremakeproject.org/2020/04/30/sites-with-free-therapy-worksheets-handouts/ https://mindremakeproject.org/2019/04/16/books-and-resources-for-therapists/

TheraNest offers a wide variety of free resources (and yes, they’re available even if you use a different EHR), including blog posts, free guides and templates, worksheets and even marketing or telehealth resources. If you use a different EHR, it’s worth checking their site as well, as they might have resources available for their users, tailored to your EHR, so you don’t need to edit templates to make them work or find how to accomplish something on a different site. https://theranest.com/resources/

Therapist Aid

Therapist Aid offers resources for professional therapists and counselors. You can find worksheets, videos and patient activities. They are separated by topic or type, so you can find what works best for you. https://www.therapistaid.com/ Centre for Clinical Interventions

The Centre offers resources for clinicians in the field of mental health, particularly for cognitive approaches to psychological interventions. These handouts, videos and manuals are more specialized and in-depth for clinicians looking to dive in. https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au/Resources/For-Clinicians

Person Centered Tech

While you have to be a member to access the resources, luckily you can become a member for free. In addition to workbooks and articles, this website offers articles and templates for HIPAA compliance and documentation for teletherapy. This can be useful for navigating the legalities and privacy of technology and therapy. https://personcenteredtech.com/free-downloads-for-our-members/

The Center for Ethical Practice

If you want templates for consent forms or confidentiality contracts, this is the place to go. This can be particularly useful for small or private practices that don’t have access to a legal team to draft these documents. https://centerforethicalpractice.org/ethical-legal-resources/practice-resources/

Neurodiverse Counseling

Neurodiverse counseling offers a mix of free and paid resources for private practitioners (or people thinking about starting their own). From books to videos, the site can guide people through resources needed to run their practice and educate themselves and their patients on neurodivergence. https://www.neurodiversecounseling.com/

Belmont Wellness

These resources include group activity worksheets and quizzes that focus on healthy communication, stress management and cognitive behavior strategies. https://belmontwellness.com/psychoeducational-handouts-quizzes-group-activities/

Therapy Worksheets

Just as the name indicate, this is handy repository of various types of worksheets, from anger management to couple’s therapy. https://therapyworksheets.blogspot.com/

Whether you check out blogs, podcasts or community meetings with other mental health professionals, your best bet for free, useful resources are people in the same profession. Consider sharing anything you found useful with other members of your community as well.