Grants for Expansion and Sustainability of the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children with Serious Emotional Disturbances

For program and eligibility questions:
Kathryn Perrotta
240.276.1903
kathryn.perrotta@samhsa.hhs.gov

For fiscal and budget questions:
240.276.1940
FOACMHS@samhsa.hhs.gov

For grant review process and application status questions contact:
Arvinda Khatri
240.276.0191
Arvinda.khatri@samhsa.hhs.gov

This opportunity, short title: Children's Mental Health Initiative (CMHI), will provide grants to improve the mental health outcomes for children and youth, birth through age 21, at risk for or with serious emotional disturbances (SED), and their families. The program supports the implementation, expansion, and integration of the System of Care (SOC) approach by creating sustainable infrastructure and services. The overall goal is to prepare children and youth at risk for or with SED for successful transition to adulthood and assumption of adult roles and responsibilities.

Projects should provide evidence-based and culturally appropriate mental health services including:

• Diagnostic and evaluation services, including an assessment of substance use history, trauma history, risk for suicide, and general health conditions
• Outpatient services provided in a clinic, office, school, or other appropriate location, including individual, group, and family counseling, professional consultation, and review and management of medications
• 24-hour mental health crisis emergency services, 7 days per week
• Intensive home-based outreach and case management services for children, youth, and young adults and their families when the service recipient is at imminent risk of out-of-home placement
• Intensive day treatment services
• Respite care services
• Therapeutic foster care services, services in therapeutic foster family homes or individual therapeutic residential homes, and group homes caring for not more than 10 children, youth, and young adults
• Transition from the child and youth service to the adult delivery system
• A full list of required and other allowable activities is provided in the application instructions.

Populations of focus include:

• Black, Latino, Indigenous and Native American, Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, and other persons of color
• Members of religious minorities
• Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons
• People with disabilities
• People who live in rural areas
• Persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality
• Youth co-served across systems such as juvenile justice, child welfare systems, runaway youth, and youth experiencing homelessness

Eligible applicants include:

• State governments and territories
• Governmental units within political subdivisions of a state
• Federally recognized American Indian/Alaska Native tribes
• Tribal organizations

Award ceiling: $3,000,000
Project period: 4 years
Estimated number of awards: 23
Estimated total program funding: $30,442,272

At least 3 awards will be made to tribes and tribal organizations.

Recipients must provide matching funds from non-federal contributions. For Years 1, 2, and 3, matching funds must be at least $1 for each $3 of federal funds. For Year 4, the match must be at least $1 for each $1 of federal funds.

Links to the full announcement, application instructions, and the online application process are available through grants.gov.