This is an opportunity for communities (from very rural to
highly urban) to receive a grant to be involved in identifying current
community behavioral health practices and to assist in developing new and
improved methods.
We
are working with the “Community Assessment and Education to Promote Behavioral
Health Planning and Evaluation” (CAPE) project. This is a national project
dedicated to identifying and sharing best practices for benchmarking community
behavioral health. Funding is through the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
and facilitated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of
Food and Agriculture. Project members are drawn from universities across the
United States. Project website is at: http://healthbench.info/home.html
The CAPE project has issued a “Call for Proposals” to fund eight pilot communities to participate in a joint exploration of what communities are now using to gauge community behavioral health and how these methods can be improved. This includes an online survey of local health decision makers (broadly defined) aimed at developing a better understanding of where local leaders draw their information about community behavioral health trends as well as a joint shaping and testing of new tools to make the process more accurate and efficient.
PROPOSALS ARE DUE JANUARY 21, 2014. Community selections are expected to be announced at the end of January. The pilot program is expected to run from March 3, 2014 to October 31, 2014.
Communities selected for this program will receive funds to buy out up to 8 months of up to 1.0 FTE (0.67 FTE total) per selected community for current staff members to join the CAPE project. Funding will come in the form of a contract with the land grant institution leading the community effort. Community teams of one, two, or three individuals will be considered. Pre-approved travel or other pre-approved out-of-pocket costs will be directly reimbursed.
ANY U.S. COMMUNITY IS ELIGIBLE. The eight communities are expected to be drawn from a range of community types from very rural to highly urban. Communities are expected to be defined using county lines (single-county units are preferred but multi-county proposals will be considered, especially in tribal areas) due to the availability of Federal county health statistics. The selection process may also take into account a desire to balance the eight communities across the four USDA regions to obtain input from a more diverse set of circumstances.
For
more detailed information, please go to: http://healthbench.info/communities.html.
Direct your questions to: Scott Loveridge, North Central
Regional Center for Rural Development at loverid2@msu.edu.
