Oct. 30, 2025
AURORA, Colo. – Last month, the Community College of Aurora (CCA) co-authored a collaborative case study about ways to develop and launch behavioral health programs that align best with real industry needs. Workcred, a non-profit affiliate of the American National Standards Institute that focuses on the quality, effectiveness, and market value of credentials, published the case study about CCA’s five behavioral health microcredentials that stack into its two Associate of Applied Science and two Bachelor of Applied Science degree concentrations. The study highlights the benefits of embedding behavioral health certifications into degree programs to allow students to work in behavioral health jobs during school and advance into higher-paying jobs sooner after earning their degree.
Dr. Jennifer E. Dale, CCA’s Associate Vice President of Online and the Centennial Campus, helped write the grant application that got CCA involved in the study. She took the lead on developing CCA’s behavioral health academic pathway and worked to include behavioral health certifications into the curriculum.
CCA recognized the critical need for a stackable Behavioral Health program, and one that focused on getting students to work quickly while also being able to advance in their educational attainment as it aligned to their work advancement,
Dr. Dale said. This move to ensure upward economic and social mobility requires the certification and degree framework be embedded in the Behavioral Health pathways created. We partnered with our other ecosystem members to identify or create certifications and industry credentials needed as part of the degree pathway, including the Peer Support Specialist, Registered Behavior Technician® (RBT), and Qualified Behavioral Health Assistant.
CCA is one of four institutions that participated in the project to explore effective ways to create new pathways that embed industry certificates and certifications into degree programs. Doing so provides learners more career opportunities. The three-year research project was possible thanks to grant funding from ECMC Foundation and a partnership among Workcred, the Higher Learning Commission, and The League for Innovation in Community College. The three other case studies about Delta College, Kirkwood Community College, and Moraine Valley Community College all dealt with pathways in information technology, making CCA stand out for its focus on behavioral health.
This three-year collaboration has produced resources that are actionable blueprints for transforming how community colleges prepare students for career success,
said Dr. Roy Swift, Executive Director of Workcred. We’re proud to share practical tools that colleges nationwide can implement to bridge the skills gap and benefit both employers and the workforce across the nation.
The research produced practical resources for institutions across the nation to reference, including a playbook for implementing certificate and degree pathways, a guidebook for how they support accreditation, recommendations for collaboration, and videos highlighting details of the project. A video featuring CCA is below.
CCA’s approach of ensuring that students can earn certifications as part of their academic pathway is as innovative as the recent investments and growth of behavioral health programs at CCA. The Centennial Campus opened last year as the home for all health science programs. Shortly after, CCA launched a new nursing education program, which welcomed its first cohort of students this fall. It paved the way for CCA to offer its first bachelor’s degree earlier this year. These investments and other institutional initiatives contributed to record-breaking enrollment at CCA for fall 2025.
The growth in CCA’s Behavioral Health programs stems from our ongoing work directly with our industry partners and learners to ensure we are offering programs and credentials our community needs in a format that serves our population (in-person, online, hybrid, and remote synchronous),
Dr. Dale said. Our program is responsive, flexible, and accessible to our learners and they are thriving in it.
About the Community College of Aurora
The Community College of Aurora (CCA) provides high-quality instruction and student support services to Aurora, Centennial, and Denver, Colorado. With a vision to aspire to be a college where every student succeeds, CCA is the most diverse college in the State of Colorado. Focused on creating social and economic mobility for its students, the college offers courses on three (3) campuses, online, and through its high school concurrent-enrollment programs. For more information, visit www.ccaurora.edu.
About Workcred
Formed in 2014, Workcred is an affiliate of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Its mission is to strengthen workforce quality by improving the credentialing system, ensuring its ongoing relevance, and preparing employers, workers, educators, and governments to use it effectively. Workcred’s vision is a labor market that relies on the relevance, quality, and value of workforce credentials for opportunities, growth, and development. Learn more at www.workcred.org.
Contact:
Courtney Butler
Executive Director of Strategic Communications and Special Initiatives
Strategic Communications and Alumni Engagement
P: 303-340-7201 | E: [email protected]