The Bowen Center for Health Workforce Research and Policy has released its latest workforce snapshots covering Indiana’s behavioral health and human services (BHHS) workforce. The workforce is made up of 10,460 actively practicing professions as of 2024 license renewal data. Of those, 9,677 licensed professionals (excluding associates) and 783 are associate-level practitioners.
Snapshots by Profession and Number of Professionals
- Licensed clinical social workers (LCSW) – 4,549
- Licensed mental health counselors (LMHC) – 2,395
- Licensed social workers (LSW) – 1,800
- Licensed marriage and family therapists (LMFT) – 628
- Licensed clinical addiction counselors (LCAC) – 178
- Bachelor social workers (BSW) – 71
- Licensed addiction counselors (LAC) – 56
- Associate-level professionals – 783
How to Use These BHHS Workforce Data Snapshots
These new snapshots provide an overview of BHHS professions in Indiana based on data collected during the 2024 license renewal period. Each BHHS profession has its own snapshot. Additionally, there are snapshots for BHHS professionals excluding associate-level licenses and BHHS associates only. All snapshots include the same highlighted information but specific to the group covered.
Key Information Includes
- Total actively practicing professionals: the number of individuals licensed and practicing in Indiana
- Specialties: the areas of focus these professionals reported
- Primary practice setting: the environments in which these professionals work
- Services provided: the most common services these professionals offer
- Populations served: the groups these professionals report working with most frequently
- Where professionals obtained their education: the geographic location where these professionals completed their qualifying degrees or training
These data can be used to understand the composition, distribution, and characteristics of Indiana’s BHHS workforce. They can inform workforce planning, policy decisions, and strategies to address service gaps across the state.
Check out the full snapshot for all BHHS professionals, excluding associates, below.
How to Read the Geographic Distribution Map
In addition to the workforce snapshots, the Bowen Center produced a map illustrating the geographic distribution of all BHHS professionals across all of Indiana’s 92 counties, according to data collected during the 2024 license renewal cycle.
Counties are color-coded based on the ratio of population to full-time equivalent (FTE) professionals. This measure indicates how many people each professional serves in a given county.
- Darker green counties have fewer people per BHHS professional, indicating greater workforce availability.
- Lighter green counties have more people per BHHS professional, indicating lower workforce availability.
- Gray counties have zero BHHS professionals.
The geographic distribution map of all BHHS professionals in Indiana can be found here.
This visualization helps identify geographic areas with potential workforce gaps and can be used to inform targeted recruitment, retention, and policy strategies to improve access to services across the state.