First Steps

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s (DOHMH) Mental Health Scholarship Program at the Silberman School of Social Work is open to applicants with two years of full-time, post Bachelor’s social service experience in a social service agency. Applicants MUST be full-time employees in a program providing MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES in contract with the New York City Department of Mental Hygiene’s Bureau of Mental Health or Bureau of Children, Youth and Families.

Each year, in mid-December, an email is sent to qualifying agencies by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene program liaison announcing the availability of the scholarship, and inviting eligible employees to submit a Letter of Intent to apply for the scholarship. Eligible employees who are interested in applying must first speak with their agency leadership, and discuss their desire to apply for the scholarship. Only after securing the approval of agency leadership, should the employee complete and email the completed Letter of Intent to MHSP@health.nyc.gov.

Specific dates for the admissions process vary slightly each year and will be posted by December 1 each year. Each Letter of Intent must be reviewed and approved by the DOHMH before an application to the Silberman School of Social Work can be submitted. The deadline to submit the Applicant Letter of Intent is in early January. Please type “DOHMH Mental Health Scholarship Program” in the subject line of the email. Anyone who submits an application to Silberman without first completing this step will not be considered for the scholarship. If a Letter of Intent is approved, the Silberman School of Social Work admissions office will be notified directly by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s program liaison. The employee may then complete an application for the Silberman School of Social Work One-Year-Residency Program. Please note that an approved Letter of Intent does not guarantee acceptance to the Silberman School of Social Work or the MHSP, and that the DOHMH program liaison cannot disclose any information about the status of an application to the Silberman School of Social Work.

See the 2024 NYC-DOHMH instructions for submitting a letter of interest below. The deadline for submitting your LOI is January 12, 2024.

2024 Letter of Intent

• Applicants must meet the Silberman School of Social Work’s admission standards https://sssw.hunter.cuny.edu/admissions/requirements/ and requirements for the One-Year-Residency program.
• You may then complete and submit the online application for the OYR Program, and select the “Mental Health Scholarship Program” as the program of study. (You will not need to submit a separate application for the Mental Health Scholarship Program.) 
• You should indicate “pay by check” when you submit the application. Upon approval by DOHMH, the application fee will be waived.

Application Deadline: March 1 (supporting documentation due March 15).

What to Expect in the Months After You Apply

All applications received by the deadlines are reviewed by both the SIlberman admissions department and the MHSP staff. You will receive a digital email notification of your application status via the Apply Yourself platform by the end of May. Note – receiving a “pending interview” notice from Apply Yourself indicates your application is currently under review and does not mean that you have been selected for a group interview. Due to the large number of applicants, we do not notify applicants who are not selected for the group Interview. If you are not selected for an interview, you may still choose to proceed with your One-Year-Residency application to Silberman without the scholarship. 

If you are selected for a group interview, you will be contacted directly by email by our Mental Health Scholarship Program Coordinator in early May. Group interviews are completed each year by the end of the third week in May, after which time a careful review process is undertaken to select 20 MHSP scholars. Acceptance letters and letters notifying applicants who were interviewed that they were not selected for the scholarship are then emailed, usually by the end of the first week in June. Please note, if you were not interviewed, you will not receive a letter stating that you were not accepted.

The twenty scholars selected for the incoming Fall class are expected to attend a welcome reception hosted by the school and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, typically held in late June each year. Signed contracts, accepting the terms laid out for participation in the scholarship must be returned to Marlene Mendelson, LCSW by the end of the first week in July. Classes begin in late August and all first and second year scholars are expected to attend an MHSP specific orientation the day before the start of classes.