Column on Telebehavioral Health Education, Training, and Competency Development: Current and Future Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has resulted in many worldwide rapid and major changes in how behavioral health education, training, supervision, and service delivery are being done and will have significant long-term implications for the future of telebehavioral health (TBH). Mandates for social distancing during the pandemic necessitated urgently changing from in-person forms of education, training, supervision, and service delivery to uses of telecommunications, often with minimal preparation. This column on telebehavioral health education, training, supervision, and competencies presents some examples of how organizations, programs, and practitioners generally successfully adapted and responded to these sudden circumstances. How some of the major barriers to the adoption of telebehavioral services in the USA were quickly changed, and considerations for the future education, training, and service delivery of telebehavioral health are identified.