Rachel talks with Val Strunk, a licensed social worker, child therapist, and co-owner of Wired to Bloom Therapy in the Cincinnati area. Val is an immigrant and an EMDR-trained therapist. She uses child-centered, trauma-informed play and creative approaches with children and families, including immigrant families. Rachel found her work in Cincinnati Magazine. They discuss how immigration enforcement and changes to health coverage are adding stress for immigrant and mixed-status families. Georgetown's Center for Children and Families has called this a "perfect storm" for children's mental health.

Val describes the fear, confusion, and grief she sees in children, and how kids absorb everything around them. She explains what shows up in play therapy, including children's confusion about whether to trust or fear uniformed officers. She also covers the industry side: a provider shortage, practices dropping Medicaid and insurance because of reimbursement cuts, and families too afraid to leave home or share information, even for telehealth. For clinicians and practice owners, she suggests offering accessibility and low-cost spaces when there is capacity, advocating, and building trusted referral relationships through community outreach. She also encourages listeners to get to know their immigrant neighbors.

Resources Mentioned

Articles Referenced:

• The Cost of Living Afraid. Cincinnati Magazine (July 2026): https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article/cost-of-living-afraid/
• Fear as Policy: The Growing Mental Health Toll of Mass Deportation Policies. American Immigration Council (August 2026): https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/mental-health-mass-deportation-immigration-policies/
• The Perfect Storm: How Immigration and Medicaid Policy Changes Are Exacerbating a Student Mental Health Crisis. Georgetown Center for Children and Families (January 2026): https://ccf.georgetown.edu/2026/01/06/the-perfect-storm-how-immigration-and-medicaid-policy-changes-are-exacerbating-a-student-mental-health-crisis/
• Navigating Uncertainty: Facilitating Parent-Child Conversations About Immigration Enforcement-Related Family Separation. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (July 2026): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42398894/

Connect with Val Strunk:
Wired to Bloom Therapy: https://wiredtobloomtherapy.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/val-s-719992a8/

Connect with The Mental Health Evolution:
Website: https://www.traumaspecialiststraining.com/mental-health-evolution-podcast
Instagram: /thementalhealthevolution/
LinkedIn: /the-mental-health-evolution
Facebook: /TheMentalHealthEvolution

Music by Zach Harrison

Rachel welcomes back Dr. Libby Stuyt, a guest many listeners may remember from our previous podcast, The Mental Health Entrepreneur. Dr. Stuyt is a board-certified psychiatrist and volunteer clinical faculty at the University of Colorado Health Science Center. She is also a trainer for the People's Organization for Community Acupuncture. When she joined us before, the conversation was about the use of acupuncture in addiction treatment. That episode is linked below.

Dr. Stuyt has spent over three decades working in Colorado with people who have co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorder. She has been watching the mental health consequences of today's high-potency cannabis on young people unfold in real time. Colorado was one of the first states to legalize recreational marijuana, so she has had a longer window than most to see what happens when cannabis becomes normalized, commercialized, and increasingly potent. In this conversation, she and Rachel cover how much the product has changed. THC in the plant has gone from about 2–3 percent in the 1960s through the 1980s to an average of up to 20 percent today, and some concentrates are 99.9 percent pure. They also cover intoxicating hemp products like delta 8 and delta 10, why the developing brain is most at risk, why the research doesn't support cannabis as a treatment for PTSD, what regulation could look like, and what clinicians and practice owners can do now.

Resources Mentioned

Articles Referenced:

• Cannabis Legalization and Adolescent Behavioral Health: Are Current Policies Sufficiently Protecting Adolescents? — Behavioral Health News (September 2026): https://behavioralhealthnews.org/cannabis-legalization-and-adolescent-behavioral-health-are-current-policies-sufficiently-protecting-adolescents/
• Cannabis and Teens — CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/cannabis/health-effects/cannabis-and-teens.html
• A Huge Study Finds a Link Between Cannabis Use in Teens and Psychosis Later — NPR (February 2026): https://www.npr.org/2026/02/23/nx-s1-5719338-e1/a-huge-study-finds-a-link-between-cannabis-use-in-teens-and-psychosis-later

Dr. Stuyt's original appearance (ear acupuncture and addiction treatment): https://www.traumaspecialiststraining.com/resources/podcast-episodes/15-2024

Connect with Dr. Libby Stuyt:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/libby-stuyt-4a45461b/
People's Organization for Community Acupuncture: https://pocacoop.com/

Connect with The Mental Health Evolution:
Website: https://www.traumaspecialiststraining.com/mental-health-evolution-podcast
Instagram: /thementalhealthevolution/
LinkedIn: /the-mental-health-evolution
Facebook: /TheMentalHealthEvolution

Music by Zach Harrison

This week Rachel goes solo to talk about something she has been watching unfold in real time — two states making completely opposite decisions about who gets reimbursed in behavioral health, at the exact same moment, with major implications for the mental health workforce pipeline.

Rachel owns a multi-state group practice and runs a training institute. She employs clinicians at every stage of licensure — interns, provisionally licensed, and fully licensed — and she has skin in this game. What she is watching happen right now affects every practice that trains the next generation of therapists.

The episode starts by defining the three levels of licensure in behavioral health and how insurance has historically treated each one. Then it gets into the two stories happening simultaneously. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, which holds nearly 70 percent of the state's commercial market, announced that starting March 1, 2027, it will no longer reimburse for services provided by limited licensed clinicians in private practice settings — framing it as a quality of care decision that practice owners across Michigan are pushing back on hard. At the exact same time, Maryland passed HB 1094 and SB 910, signed into law in April 2026, mandating that insurance companies operating in Maryland reimburse for services provided by supervised graduate-level interns starting January 1, 2027.

One state is expanding the pipeline. One state's largest insurer is choking it. There is no federal standard. And the question of whether the Michigan decision spreads to other states or other insurers is one nobody can answer yet.

Rachel closes with a direct call to action: if you are a practice owner, look at your payer contracts. If you are a pre-licensed clinician, ask whether the practices you are considering have examined this issue. If you supervise, understand that the financial infrastructure supporting that work is not guaranteed. This story is not finished.

Resources Mentioned

Articles Referenced:

• New Insurance Policy on Limited Licensed Therapists — Dr. Joel L. Young, Psychology Today (June 2026): https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/when-your-adult-child-breaks-your-heart/202606/new-insurance-policy-on-limited-licensed
• Maryland Insurance Administration Bulletin 26-14 — HB 1094 and SB 910 (June 2026): https://insurance.maryland.gov/Pages/Bulletins/Bulletin-26-14.aspx
• Michigan Blue Cross to Limit Mental Health Benefit. Will Thousands Lose Care? — Robin Erb, Bridge Michigan (June 11, 2026): https://bridgemi.com/michigan-health-watch/michigan-blue-cross-to-limit-mental-health-benefit-will-thousands-lose-care/

Connect with The Mental Health Evolution:

• Website: https://www.traumaspecialiststraining.com/mental-health-evolution-podcast
• Instagram: /thementalhealthevolution/
• LinkedIn: /the-mental-health-evolution
• Facebook: /TheMentalHealthEvolution

Music by Zach Harrison