A new partnership with our School of Nursing seeks to create a Psychiatry Residency Program that would create important new clinical training and leadership opportunities for advanced practice providers such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants. During a one-year residency program, nurse practitioners would work in inpatient and outpatient behavioral health care settings gaining crucial experience in assessment, clinical management and team leadership alongside psychiatry residents and with supervision and mentorship from experienced nurse practitioners, psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. The program would provide standardization and recognition of the additional training and skills needed for such advanced practice providers to take important clinical leadership and supervisory roles in behavioral health. Several states such as Iowa and Missouri have substantially enhanced their behavioral health workforce using this approach and we are excited about developing the partnerships needed to develop such a program for graduates of nurse practitioner and physician assistant training programs here in Washington State. We are currently seeking philanthropic and state support to initiate this new program.