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ForwardPromoting Compassionate Care for Behavioral Health Patients
Promoting Compassionate Care for Behavioral Health Patients enduring module is a recording from the live Regularly Scheduled Series held on April 8, 2026. If you received credit for attending this session during the live meeting, please refrain from claiming credit for this module.
A need exists to improve healthcare professionals’ understanding and management of behavioral health stigma within clinical settings. Many providers lack formal training in recognizing stigmatizing language and attitudes, which can negatively influence patient interactions and contribute to poorer health outcomes. Without increased awareness, patients with behavioral health conditions may experience bias, reduced quality of care, and decreased willingness to seek treatment. Therefore, education is needed to help healthcare professionals define and identify stigma, understand its impact on patient care, and consistently apply respectful, person-first language and trauma-informed approaches to promote equitable, compassionate care.
Target Audience
UK HealthCare Registered Nurses and Licensed Practical Nurses
Learning Objectives
After this session, participants will be able to:
- Define behavioral health stigma in healthcare settings.
- Identify examples of stigmatizing language used in healthcare
- Explain how stigma impacts patient care and outcomes
- Apply respectful, person-first language and trauma-informed care.
Course summary
- 1.00 ANCC (UK Healthcare CECentral)
In support of improving patient care, UK HealthCare CECentral is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), and the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
The maximum number of hours awarded for this Continuing Nursing Education activity is 1.00 nursing contact hour(s).
Alicia Settle, RN, is a Team Lead Behavioral Health Nurse and Crisis Prevention Institute (CPI) Instructor with extensive experience across pediatric, adult, geriatric, and emergency psychiatric settings. She currently serves at Golisano Children’s at UK, where she provides clinical leadership, supports patient safety initiatives, and mentors nursing staff to deliver high-quality, patient-centered care. Alicia has a strong background in coordinating complex behavioral health cases, leading interdisciplinary collaboration, and improving unit workflow and staffing models to enhance patient outcomes.
With prior experience as a charge nurse in both emergency and inpatient psychiatric settings, Alicia brings expertise in crisis intervention, trauma-informed care, and team development. She is passionate about fostering safe, respectful healthcare environments and advancing best practices in behavioral health nursing. Alicia is currently pursuing her Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Northern Kentucky University.
Kimberly Bays, RN currently serves in psychiatric and acute care roles at the Golisano Children’s at UK where she provides direct patient care and collaborates with interdisciplinary teams to ensure safe, holistic treatment. Kimberly earned her Associate Degree in Nursing from Eastern Kentucky University in 2022 and her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Kentucky in 2025. Her clinical expertise includes hematology/oncology, psychiatric services, and acute care, with experience in chemotherapy administration, behavioral health monitoring, and patient/family education. In addition to her clinical work, Kimberly is actively involved in leadership and professional development initiatives. She serves as a Unit Council Co-Chair and has contributed to patient safety improvements through her role on the Safety Huddle Committee. She is also committed to mentoring future nurses, having served as a unit preceptor for nursing students and new graduate RNs. Kimberly brings strong clinical judgment, effective communication, and a passion for fostering supportive healthcare environments.
Kimberly Bays, BSN-RN
Alicia Settle
Disclosure of Financial Interest Summary to Learners
All planners, faculty, and others in control of educational content are required to disclose all their financial relationships with ineligible companies within the prior 24 months. An ineligible company is defined as one whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients. Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company.
None of the planners, faculty, and others in control of educational content for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s) to disclose with ineligible companies.
The material presented in this course represents information obtained from the scientific literature as well as the clinical experiences of the speakers. In some cases, the presentations might include discussion of investigational agents and/or off-label indications for various agents used in clinical practice. Speakers will inform the audience when they are discussing investigational and/or off-label uses.
Disclosure of a relationship is not intended to suggest or condone commercial bias in any presentation, but it is made to provide participants with information that might be of potential importance to their evaluation of a presentation.
Accreditation
In support of improving patient care, University of Kentucky HealthCare CECentral is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
ANCC credit:
The maximum number of hours awarded for this Continuing Nursing Education activity is 1 nursing contact hour(s).
Available Credit
- 1.00 ANCC (UK Healthcare CECentral)
In support of improving patient care, UK HealthCare CECentral is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), and the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
The maximum number of hours awarded for this Continuing Nursing Education activity is 1.00 nursing contact hour(s).