INTRODUCING HELLO FELLOWS

A new nonprofit clinical fellowship program from Hello Wellness.

Hello!

Bridging a critical gap in our mental health workforce.

Supporting emerging clinicians. Expanding access to care.

Hello Fellows bridges the important gap between graduation and independent licensure through excellent training, supervision, and mentorship while providing free and low-cost mental health care to people who might otherwise struggle to access it. We're building a pathway where emerging clinicians can grow and thrive at one of the most important stages of their professional development while helping expand access to care in our community.

Thanks to philanthropic support, we're beginning our pilot year with Tyleah Palmer, pictured right, as our founding Hello Fellow.

The Hello Fellows program intends to:

  • Pay emerging clinicians fairly.

  • Provide high-quality supervision, training, and mentorship.

  • Create sustainable pathways for clinicians to grow and thrive.

  • Offer free + affordable therapy.

  • Strengthen the next generation of community mental health clinicians, expand New Mexico’s behavioral health workforce, and increase access to high-quality care for children, teens, young adults and families.

Your care is part of something bigger.

Schedule an intake call

THERAPY THAT MEETS YOU WHERE YOU ARE

Community-Supported Therapy through Hello Fellows

Hello Fellows offers free and low-cost therapy because we believe finances shouldn't be a barrier to receiving care.

No one will be turned away because of inability to pay.

If you are able to contribute toward the cost of your care, here’s what we suggest:

$40 · SUGGESTED CONTRIBUTION

Contributes toward the cost of providing your care.

$70 · SUPPORT THE COST OF YOUR CARE

More closely reflects the cost of providing your therapy, including supervision, clinical systems, space, and support.

$100+ · PAY IT FORWARD

Covers your care and helps make free and lower-cost therapy available to someone else.

Give what you can. Your contribution helps make this model possible.

Why We Know This Matters

The early years of a clinician’s career matter. Newly graduated clinicians enter the mental health workforce at a crucial stage in their professional development. Yet too often, emerging clinicians begin their careers in demanding community mental health settings carrying large caseloads and working with people experiencing significant and complex needs, while earning relatively low wages and without enough access to the dedicated supervision, training, and mentorship they need to grow and thrive.

Research tells us that these conditions have consequences. Low compensation, high workloads, high-acuity clinical work, limited opportunities for professional development, and insufficient organizational support are associated with burnout and turnover in the behavioral health workforce. Research also points to the importance of quality clinical supervision, manageable workloads, professional development, and meaningful support in helping clinicians build sustainable careers.

This matters everywhere. It is particularly important in New Mexico, where communities across the state continue to experience behavioral health workforce shortages. New Mexico workforce research has identified access to quality clinical supervision, training, mentorship, and pathways toward independent licensure as important components of building and retaining the behavioral health workforce.

Hello Fellows is designed to interrupt this cycle.

Rather than asking emerging clinicians to simply withstand the most difficult years of their professional development, we're building a different kind of pathway — one that pairs excellent clinical supervision with ongoing training and mentorship, fair compensation, and sustainable clinical workloads.

And that investment has a ripple effect.

When emerging clinicians have the support they need to become skilled, confident, sustainable practitioners, we strengthen the workforce as a whole. And through the Fellowship, their developing clinical capacity simultaneously creates more opportunities for children, young people, and families to receive free and affordable mental health care.

One model addresses two urgent needs: supporting and retaining the next generation of mental health clinicians while expanding access to care in our community.

That's why we're building Hello Fellows.

  • Hello Fellows is informed by research on behavioral health workforce development, clinician retention, clinical supervision, and access to care as well as research specific to New Mexico’s behavioral health workforce.

  • New Mexico continues to face a significant behavioral health workforce shortage. A 2026 statewide workforce blueprint reports that 32 of New Mexico’s 33 counties are designated behavioral health professional shortage areas, with only about 30% of mental health care needs being met statewide.

    The report identifies persistent workforce challenges including limited access to clinical supervision, inadequate compensation, organizational burnout, high caseloads, complex clinical work, and underdeveloped career pathways. Its recommendations emphasize strengthening supervision, professional development, career pathways, and workforce supports — many of the same needs Hello Fellows is designed to address.

    Rooted in Community, Ready for the Future: New Mexico’s Strategic Blueprint for Strengthening Social Work and Behavioral Health Career Pathways. Center for Excellence in Social Work, New Mexico Highlands University, 2026.

  • Recent statewide research gives us a window into what these workforce challenges look like for clinicians themselves. Among surveyed New Mexico social workers, 39% reported feeling overwhelmed by their caseload or workload, while 41% felt they were not equitably compensated for their skills and expertise.

    These findings underscore the importance of building career pathways that consider not only recruitment, but the working conditions that help clinicians remain and thrive in the field.

    Social Workers of New Mexico Survey. Center for Excellence in Social Work, New Mexico Highlands University.

  • Access to qualified, high-quality clinical supervision is a critical part of developing New Mexico’s behavioral health workforce. For many non-independently licensed social workers and counselors, supervision is not only an important source of professional development — it is required to progress toward independent licensure.

    New Mexico continues to invest in strengthening this infrastructure. The state’s updated Clinical Supervision Implementation Guide focuses on improving the quality and availability of supervision across behavioral health disciplines, including guidance for advanced licensure, approved supervisors, ethical practice, cultural humility, interdisciplinary practice, and high-quality clinical care.

    For Hello Fellows, this is an important part of the workforce pipeline: developing emerging clinicians also means developing the experienced clinicians who can supervise, mentor, and support them along the way.

    Clinical Supervision Implementation Guide, 2nd Edition. New Mexico Health Care Authority, 2025.

  • Research on the public behavioral health workforce has identified low wages, large caseloads, high patient acuity, limited career-development opportunities, and inadequate organizational support among factors contributing to clinician stress, turnover, and attrition.

    The study also found that new graduates can enter public behavioral health settings unprepared for the severity and complexity of the clinical work they encounter — highlighting the importance of strong support during the transition from graduate education into professional practice.

    Hallett, E., Simeon, E., Amba, V., Howington, D., McConnell, K.J., & Zhu, J.M. (2024). Factors Influencing Turnover and Attrition in the Public Behavioral Health System Workforce: Qualitative Study. Psychiatric Services, 75(1), 55–63.

  • Research involving 823 behavioral health counselors found that the perceived quality of clinical supervision was associated with lower emotional exhaustion and lower intention to leave. A subsequent study of 934 counselors found that higher-quality clinical supervision was also strongly associated with greater commitment to both the clinician’s organization and the counseling profession. Together, these findings point to high-quality supervision as an important support for clinician wellbeing and workforce retention.

    Knudsen, H.K., Ducharme, L.J., & Roman, P.M. (2008). Clinical supervision, emotional exhaustion, and turnover intention: A study of substance abuse treatment counselors in the Clinical Trials Network of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 35(4), 387–395.

    Knudsen, H.K., Roman, P.M., & Abraham, A.J. (2013). Quality of clinical supervision and counselor emotional exhaustion: The potential mediating roles of organizational and occupational commitment. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 44(5), 528–533.

  • Behavioral health workforce shortages and access to care are deeply connected. When communities do not have enough clinicians — or when clinicians leave because their work is unsustainable — the capacity to provide consistent, high-quality mental health care shrinks.

    New Mexico’s current workforce planning emphasizes stronger career pathways, supervision, professional development, and retention as part of building a behavioral health workforce capable of meeting the needs of communities across the state.
    That connection is central to Hello Fellows: investing in emerging clinicians is also an investment in expanding access to high-quality mental health care.

    Rooted in Community, Ready for the Future: New Mexico’s Strategic Blueprint for Strengthening Social Work and Behavioral Health Career Pathways. Center for Excellence in Social Work, New Mexico Highlands University, 2026.