AGENCY OVERVIEW

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: Promoting a Life in the Community for Everyone

SAMHSA'S Centers and Offices

Selected Achievements

Conclusion & Funding Opportunities

Matrix of Priority Programs

Promoting Accountability: To promote accountability, SAMHSA tracks national trends, establishes measurement and reporting systems, develops and promotes standards to monitor service systems, and works to achieve excellence in management practices in mental health services, addiction treatment, and substance abuse prevention.

Enhancing Capacity: By assessing resources, supporting systems of community-based care, improving service financing and organization, and promoting a strong, well-educated workforce, SAMHSA enhances the Nation’s capacity to serve people with or at risk of mental and substance abuse disorders.

Assuring Effectiveness: The Agency also helps assure service effectiveness through the continuous improvement of services and workforce by assessing service delivery practices, identifying and promoting evidence-based approaches to care, implementing and evaluating innovative services, and providing workforce skills training. Through these practices, SAMHSA supports a science-to-services cycle in which new knowledge helps inform new community-based services and in which service needs help inform the next generation of scientific inquiry.

With a Fiscal Year 2003 budget of just under $3.2 billion, SAMHSA’s program dollars support formula grant programs, primarily the Mental Health and Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant Programs. Under both programs, SAMHSA encourages the States and Territories to address the substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and mental health services needs both by supporting specific services programs and by assessing and reporting on progress, needs, and ongoing activities. Based on a mandate in SAMHSA’s reauthorizing statute, the nature of the formula grant program is changing to focus on Performance Partnership Grants (PPGs). Instead of accountability based on documentation of compliance, PPGs rely on evidence of performance. Through PPGs, States will have greater flexibility in how they use block grant funds to meet State needs. That flexibility is balanced with greater accountability based on performance. Neither the eligibility for funding nor the formula for fund distribution is altered. Rather, the nature of the Federal-State relationship is being altered to better help achieve the shared goal of improved services for people with mental illnesses or substance abuse disorders, or both.

SAMHSA’s Programs of Regional and National Significance – its discretionary grant portfolio – focuses on the priorities and principles in the matrix already described. Both the Targeted Capacity Expansion (TCE) program and the State Incentive Grant (SIG) program provide community officials resources to address emerging substance abuse treatment and prevention trends, and mental health service at the earliest possible stages. These programs help provide new information and best practices to guide how local communities identify and develop needed services. SAMHSA’s National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) and other data-related activities gather, aggregate, assess, and report on trends related to mental health services, addiction treatment, and substance abuse prevention.

SAMHSA'S Centers and Offices

The Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) seeks to improve the availability and accessibility of high-quality community-based services for people with or at risk for mental illnesses and their families. While the largest portion of the Center’s appropriation supports the Community Mental Health Services Block Grant Program, CMHS also supports a portfolio of discretionary grant programs, called Programs of Regional and National Significance, to apply knowledge about best community-based systems of care and services for adults with serious mental illnesses and children with serious emotional disturbances. Issues of stigma and consumer empowerment are also on the Center’s program and policy agenda. The Center collects, analyzes, and disseminates national data on mental health services designed to help inform future services policy and program decision-making. SAMHSA’s National Mental Health Information Center can be reached toll-free at 1-800-789-2647 or online at www.mentalhealth.samhsa.gov.

The mission of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) is to bring effective substance abuse prevention to every community, nationwide. Its discretionary grant programs – whether focusing on preschool-age children and high-risk youth or on community-dwelling older Americans – target States and communities, organizations and families to promote resiliency, promote protective factors, and reduce risk factors for substance abuse. Further, this SAMHSA Center supports the National Clearinghouse for Alcohol and Drug Information (NCADI), the largest Federal source of information about substance abuse research, treatment, and prevention available to the public. It can be reached by phone at 1-800-729-6686, and on the Internet at www.ncadi.samhsa.gov.

The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) promotes the availability and quality of community-based substance abuse treatment services for individuals and families who need them. It supports policies and programs to broaden the range of evidence-based effective treatment services for individuals who abuse alcohol and other drugs and that also address other addiction-related health and human services problems. The Center administers the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Block Grant Program. While engaging with States to improve and enhance existing services under the block grant program, CSAT also undertakes significant professional and lay education programs and initiatives to promote best practices in substance abuse treatment and intervention. CSAT also supports SAMHSA’s toll-free treatment referral line, 1-800-662-HELP, to link people with community-based substance abuse treatment services they need. The service also is available on the Internet at www.findtreatment.samhsa.gov.

SAMHSA’s Office of Applied Studies (OAS) gathers, analyzes, and disseminates data on substance abuse practices in the United States. OAS is responsible for the annual National Household Survey on Drug Abuse, the Drug Abuse Warning Network, and the Drug and Alcohol Services Information Services System, among other studies. OAS also coordinates evaluation of the service-delivery models within SAMHSA's knowledge development and application programs.

Selected Achievements

Through its grant programs, public and professional education initiatives, and communications activities, SAMHSA has pursued an aggressive science-to-services agenda that moves new evidence-based knowledge in behavioral health services to community-level services programs nationwide. Working from its vision of "a life in the community for everyone," the matrix of program and principles has guided SAMHSA’s work consistent with the goals and objectives of the Department and the Administration. Most recently, SAMHSA’s work has focused directly on those elements of the matrix; that effort will continue into the future. Key activities and achievements include:

Access to Recovery: In his 2003 State of the Union, President Bush announced a new initiative, Access to Recovery, to provide people seeking drug and alcohol treatment with vouchers to pay for a range of appropriate community-based services. SAMHSA has secured $100 million for the first year of that program and has announced a new discretionary grant program to move the President’s vision for accessible drug treatment to people in need of care. The program supports State and Tribal leadership in substance abuse treatment by funding voucher programs that achieve three key objectives: consumer choice, effective treatment outcomes, and increased treatment capacity. Critically, these dollars are intended to supplement current programs. Access to Recovery will help States and Tribal Organizations open new pathways to recovery and rapidly build strong, outcome-oriented performance incentives into the substance abuse treatment system.

The President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health: In April 2002, President Bush established the President’s New Freedom Commission on Mental Health. The final report of the Commission, submitted to the President in the summer of 2003, identified both the needs of people with mental illnesses and the barriers to care. It investigated community-based service models that have had success in both coordinating and providing mental health services. The report also included recommendations for immediate action by the public and private sectors to improve coordination and quality of services with existing resources. At the direction of Secretary Thompson, SAMHSA is completing the Administration’s first review and response to this historic document: a thorough review and assessment of the report, coupled with the development of an action plan to strengthen our mental health system.

Leading on Co-Occurring Mental and Substance Use Disorders: SAMHSA’s December 2002 Report to Congress on co-occurring mental and substance use disorders delineated long-standing barriers to appropriate treatment and support services for people with these disorders, including separate administrative structures, eligibility criteria, and funding streams. It emphasized that people with co-occurring disorders can and do recover with appropriate treatment and support services. The report recommended creation of a system in which both disorders are addressed and treated as primary illnesses and proffered a five-year plan action to improve the opportunity for recovery for people with co-occurring disorders. Since then, six State Incentive Grant for Co-occurring Disorders have been funded; a national co-occurring disorders prevention and treatment technical assistance and cross-training center has been established. SAMHSA also is identifying known-effective programs for the prevention and treatment of co-occurring disorders through its evidence-based practice initiative and is expanding its national registry of effective programs to include effective treatments for co-occurring disorders.

When Terror Strikes: Addressing the Nation’s Mental Health and Substance Abuse Needs: Working with SAMHSA, HHS Secretary Thompson convened a national summit in New York City in November , 2001, to examine the mental health and substance abuse needs of individuals and communities before, during, and after acts and threats of terrorism. Over 42 governor-appointed state teams. teams from 5 jurisdictions and the District of Columbia, and over 100 representatives of national organizations participated met and refined disaster plans to ensure readiness of mental health and substance abuse services for the ongoing war on terrorism and in the event of future attack. Since the meeting, SAMHSA has been making planning grants available to States to support the integration of behavioral health into disaster health planning.

Reach Out Now: Talk with Your Fifth Graders about Underage Drinking: In a collaboration among SAMHSA, the U.S. Department of Education, and Scholastic, Inc., since 2002, fifth-grade classroom teachers nationwide have received Reach Out Now, specially designed materials on underage drinking for use by fifth-grade students, their families, and teachers. The materials include a four-page set of lessons and classroom activities, and a take-home packet for parents. Product evaluation found that in their first year alone, the materials reached nearly 100,000 teachers and 3 million students; over 75% of teachers surveyed recalled receiving the program. The average for similar in-school programs is 46%. Of those who recalled receiving the materials, 67% had already used them; another 21% said they planned to use them.

Promoting Evidence-based Practices in Mental Health Services and Substance Abuse Treatment: SAMHSA has been synthesizing information on evidence-based practices and preparing useful and timely protocols for clinicians working in mental health services and substance abuse treatment and prevention. Building on its start in substance abuse prevention, SAMHSA continues to identify, evaluate, and certify model programs through its National Registry of Effective Programs. The Evidence-Based Practices Project is developing and testing six specific implementation toolkits to promote the delivery of effective practices for people with serious mental illnesses and co-occurring substance use disorders. The substance abuse-related Treatment Improvement Protocol series is reaching its 40th installment of topic-specific tools for substance abuse treatment providers, now including materials for people in treatment for substance use. Clinical curricula in specific TIPs-related areas are also under development.

Conclusion & Funding Opportunities

SAMHSA supports programs, policy, and knowledge development about substance abuse prevention, addiction treatment, and mental health services through three major funding streams: (1) Block and Formula Grants; (2) Targeted Capacity Expansion Grants; and (3) Programs of Regional and National Significance. For detailed information about current grant opportunities, browse the SAMHSA website at www.samhsa.gov and click on "grant opportunities." Visit regularly for updates.