25 Weeks of Gratitude: UA Little Rock Social Work Behavioral Health Integration Program
From orphan to medical social worker
Jennifer Bridgeman
In his youth, Curtis Harris Jr. grew to distrust the social workers he encountered in Michigan’s foster care system. But today, Harris hopes to create a better experience for those in the system and walk with people on their journeys toward better mental and physical health.
Harris recently graduated from UA Little Rock with a Master of Social Work after completing a behavioral health integration program supported by the Blue & You Foundation for a Healthier Arkansas. The program places graduate social work students in primary care settings, where they join interdisciplinary care teams addressing behavioral health, physical health and social factors that affect well-being.
For Harris, the work is deeply personal. By age 16, he had lived in 14 foster homes, two boys’ homes and two juvenile detention centers because there was nowhere else to place him.
“When I aged out of the system, the only thing I received was my last check of $250 and ‘go figure it out,’ he said. With no blueprint or map, I had to create my own.”
Harris moved to Arkansas in 2005 to reconnect with his biological father. That relationship did not last, but becoming a father gave him a reason to stay, build a life in Conway and earn an undergraduate degree in health and behavioral science from the University of Central Arkansas.
Social work was not the path he expected to choose. In an undergraduate introduction to social work course, Harris remembers saying, “I don’t want to do social work. Why? Because I grew up in the system. I know what this looks like.”
Over time, he began to see those experiences differently. After talking with people who had earned their licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) or licensed masters social worker (LMSW) one piece of advice stayed with him: Consider hospitals.
“You’re not there to save people. You’re there to just help them along their journey,” Harris said.
Lindsay Ruhr, Ph.D., MPPA, LCSW, associate professor in the UA Little Rock School of Social Work, said the program helps students bring mental and behavioral healthcare into medical settings. Through a partnership with the Arkansas Behavioral Health Integration Network, known as ABHIN, and support from the Blue & You Foundation, students learn to support patients facing depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, chronic conditions, food insecurity, housing instability and other needs that affect health.
That model is especially important in Arkansas, Ruhr said, where rural communities and stigma can make it difficult for people to seek mental health support. By placing behavioral health services within primary care clinics, the program creates a more accessible, less intimidating path to care.
Students enter the program during the concentration year of their Master of Social Work degree, typically the second year. Blue & You Foundation funding also provides internship stipends, a rare support in social work education and is especially meaningful for students balancing work, parenting or caregiving with about 24 hours a week in clinic placements.
Harris understood that pressure. While enrolled at UA Little Rock, he balanced full-time work, parenting, coursework and fieldwork by planning carefully and treating his education like another job.
“Everything for me is a calculated step,” Harris said. “You need a job where you can work overnight so you can be fully dedicated to your education during the day. That’s how I did it.”
Harris completed internships at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Longevity Center, 12th Street Clinic and Family Medicine Clinic. The medical setting quickly confirmed what he had hoped.
“When I got there, it was like, I’m home,” he said. “This is what I want to do. I really enjoy the clinical setting.”
In the clinics, Harris saw how social work connects physical health, behavioral health and daily life.
“You’re putting together this incredible puzzle of a human being’s life and just meeting them where they are,” he said. “Maybe someone has food insecurities. Someone may be homeless. You’re helping them find shelter. But at the same time, someone may come in and have bipolar one or bipolar two. You must connect all those dots.”
The work also extends to caregivers and families. “If the caregiver is stressed, if the caregiver is pulling out their hair, they’re no good for the patient,” he said. “So you have to know how to not only help the patient but also help the caregiver.”
Since the program began in fall 2021, Ruhr said 20 students have completed it, with five hired as behavioral health consultants by their internship sites or similar clinics. The program is expanding from five students to eight beginning in August and will add a focus on maternal healthcare, particularly rural maternal health.
For Harris, graduation is not the end of the story. He plans to continue in clinical social work, pursue a Ph.D. and ultimately work with young people aging out of foster care.
“For anyone thinking about going into social work, I’d say this: You have to love people. You have to be willing to advocate, even when no one is looking,” he said. “This career is not about you. It’s about the people in front of you. If you can look back 20 years from now and know you’ve changed lives, then you’ve made the right choice.”
In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Blue & You Foundation, 25 Weeks of Gratitude spotlights 25 stories of Arkansans whose lives have been impacted by Foundation-funded work.
*The Blue & You Foundation was established in 2001 through an initial gift from Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield. Since its inception, the Foundation’s financial base has grown through wise and prudent investment strategies. This has enabled the foundation to support its mission by making grants funded by the interest earned on those investments.