CONSUMER AFFAIRS BULLETIN
Volume 4, No. 1 Spring 1999

SAMHSA Awards News Consumer Grants

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS), announced awards to eight grantees and a coordinating center of the first ever "Cooperative Agreements to Evaluate Consumer-Operated Human Service Programs for Persons with Serious Mental Illness" funded at $4.9 million for 4 years. The Coordinating Center at Missouri Institute of Mental Health (MIMH), working with eight study sites, will evaluate the effectiveness and costs associated with consumer-operated services. CMHS Director Bernard S. Arons, M.D., noted, "we are encouraged by the collaborative relationships now forming between consumers and non-consumers to help launch this important program."

An enthusiastic group of these grantees met in Washington, D.C., in December 1998 to convene the Consumer-Operated Services' first steering committee meeting. The grantees included: 1) The Portland Connection and the University of Southern Maine Muskie School of Public Service; 2) Peer Center, Inc.(Fla.) and Florida International University; 3) Center for Self-Help Research, San Francisco Office of Self Help, Mental Health Client Action Network, Consumer's Self-Help North and the University of California, Berkeley, Calif.; 4) GROW of Illinois and University of Chicago Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation; 5) Building Recovery of Individual Dreams and Goals through Education and Support (BRIDGES) and Vanderbilt University Medical Center (Tenn.); 6) Advocacy Unlimited (Conn.) and Mount Sinai School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry (N.Y.); 7) Mental Health Association of Southeastern Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia Office of Mental Health, and the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Mental Health Policy and Services Research; and 8) Iowa Mental Health Advocacy, Recovery and Res Care and Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation.

Jean Campbell, Ph.D., is the principal investigator of the coordinating center. Dr. Sally Rogers and Dr. Ruth Ralph are the co-chairs of the Consumer Operated Services Steering Committee. The Consumer-Operated Services Program web site at: www.cstprogram.org is a model on how electronic communications can foster consumer and research activities. Developed by the Missouri Institute of Mental Health's Program in Consumer Studies and Training, the site provides up-to-date information on the multi-site project, information on the study sites, and a range of mailing lists and chat rooms. This effort, the largest federal investment in examining consumer-operated sources, is designed to document through sound, rigorous research - the benefits of consumers/survivors providing services to their peers.

SAMHSA/CMHS announced several new grants this fall including: State Network Grants. $1.74 million is being provided to increase the capacity of statewide consumer and/or consumer supporter networks to participate in the development of policies, program and quality assurance activities related to mental health. Statewide Family Network Grants. $1.7 million is being provided to increase the capacity of statewide family networks to participate in the development of policies, programs, and quality assurance activities related to the mental health of children and adolescents with a serious emotional disturbance and their families. Housing Initiative Phase II. $2.1 million is being provided to support Housing Initiative Phase II projects conducting evaluations of different housing approaches for persons with serious mental illness.

Community Action Grants. $4.2 million is being awarded to 31 grants to adopt exemplary and proven practices for treatment of persons with mental health and/or substance abuse problems. Eleven of these grants were awarded to Hispanic community-based organizations to support the development of services for Hispanic adults and adolescents. Study on Women and Violence Grants. $8.5 million is being provided to fourteen community-based programs in 10 states and one coordinating center for the study of women with substance abuse and mental health problems who are victims of violence. HIV/AIDS Education II. $1.59 million was awarded to disseminate state-of-the- art knowledge about identifying and training the mental health aspects associated with HIV/AIDS and to improve knowledge dissemination strategies.

State Reform Grants. $899,000 was awarded to facilitate the integration, analysis, synthesis, and use of information for state mental health planning efforts and to manage state mental health care reform efforts.

Child Mental Health Initiative. $12 million was awarded to provide comprehensive community mental health services for children and adolescents with serious emotional disturbance and their families.

Minority Fellowship Program. $366,000 was awarded to facilitate the entry of ethnic minority students into mental health careers. The grant is specifically designed to significantly increase the number of psychiatrists qualified to teach, administer, and provide direct mental health and substance abuse services to members of ethnic minority groups. State Indicator Pilot. $1.59 million was awarded to create a uniform system of measures to gauge the effectiveness of mental health services, such as employment of people with mental illness and supported housing. Twenty-eight selected performance indicators will be field tested in 16 states.

Aging, Mental Health/Substance Abuse/Primary Care. $3.24 million was awarded to support a multisite evaluation of alternative models of delivering and financing mental health and/or substance abuse services for older adults through primary health care.

Technical Assistance Center for State Mental Health Systems. $699,000 was awarded to support technical assistance activities related to achieving fundamental and long-lasting improvements in state mental health services and service systems through the National Technical Assistance Center operated by the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors.

Circles of Care Grants. $2.5 million was awarded to nine tribal and urban American Indian mental health projects to plan, design and assess mental health service systems for Native American Indians and Alaska Native children with serious emotional disturbances and their families.

Consumer Affairs Bulletin
Volume 4, No. 1, Spring 1999