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Heidelberg scholarship helps future mental health counselors start careers in NW Ohio

The Phyllis and Leon Putnam Scholarship will connect counseling students with Firelands Counseling and Recovery Services.

TIFFIN, Ohio — A new scholarship program at Heidelberg University has a two-part mission: to financially assist students in northwest Ohio and to improve mental health in the community. 

Each year, about 70 students are involved in Heidelberg University's Master of Arts in Counseling Program. However, despite having about a dozen graduates a year, Seneca, Sandusky, and Wyandot counties are experiencing a mental health provider shortage.

"So we have a really, I would say, one of the best counseling programs in the state, but we don't have a lot of people who stay here to do counseling," Marjorie Shavers, director of the graduate counseling program at Heidelberg University said.

"We are losing people to larger agencies, to bigger cities, and we have much, much need here and we want to keep them local," Executive Director of the Mental Health and Recovery Services Board of Seneca, Sandusky, and Wyandot Counties Mircea Handru said.

In order to address this need, Heidelberg has partnered with the area's Mental Health Recovery Services Board and Firelands Counseling and Recovery Services to create a new scholarship program. 

Now, the Phyllis and Leon Putnam Scholarship will help two current full-time counseling students forgive their loans, or help fund two future full-time students through the program.

Currently, the scholarship is funding for five years through MHRSB levy funds.

These students will not only fulfill their clinical hours at Firelands Counseling and Recovery, but will then be immediately onboarded as clinicians at Firelands once they graduate.

"So then, at the end of their graduation, they go straight into the workforce. They already know the system and culture and the community, so they're really able to hit the ground running," clinical director of the MAC program Megan McBride said.

Heidelberg is working with current counseling program students who will be eligible for that loan forgiveness. 

Incoming students for the upcoming fall semester have until June to apply for the scholarship.  

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