National Center for Child Traumatic Stress - Category I

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Mental Health Services is accepting applications for fiscal year (FY) 2012 National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative (NCTSI), National Center for Child Traumatic Stress (NCCTS) grant. This program is designed to improve the quality of trauma treatment and services in communities for children, adolescents, and their families who experience or witness traumatic events and to increase access to effective trauma-focused treatment and services for children and adolescents throughout the nation. The purpose of the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress (NCCTS) is to develop and maintain the collaborative network structure, support resource development and dissemination, and coordinates the Network’s national child trauma education and training efforts. Congress provided funding of $1M for data analysis and reporting activities that improve evidenced based practices and raise the standard of trauma care. The initiative is designed to address child trauma issues by supporting a national network of grantees—the National Child Traumatic Stress Network—that work collaboratively to develop and disseminate effective community practices for children and adolescents exposed to a wide array of traumatic events. The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) is composed of three types of centers: The National Center for Child Traumatic Stress (Category I) develops and maintains the collaborative network structure, supports resource development and dissemination, and coordinates the Network’s national child trauma education and training efforts. The Treatment and Service Adaptation (TSA) Centers - (Category II) provide national expertise and assume responsibility in the Network for specific areas of trauma, such as specific types of traumatic events, population groups, and service systems; and support the development and adaptation of effective trauma treatments and services for children, adolescents and their families that can be implemented throughout the nation. The Community Treatment and Services (CTS) Centers - (Category III) are primarily service programs that implement and evaluate effective treatment and services in community settings and youth serving service systems and collaborate with other NCTSN centers on clinical issues, service approaches, policy, financing, and training issues. SAMHSA has demonstrated that behavioral health is essential to health, prevention works, treatment is effective, and people recover from mental and substance use disorders. Behavioral health services improve health status and reduce health care and other costs to society. Continued improvement in the delivery and financing of prevention, treatment and recovery support services provides a cost effective opportunity to advance and protect the Nation’s health. To continue to improve the delivery and financing of prevention, treatment and recovery support services, SAMHSA has identified eight Strategic Initiatives to focus the Agency’s work on improving lives and capitalizing on emerging opportunities. The NCTSI is part of SAMHSA’s effort to achieve the goals of the Trauma and Justice Strategic Initiative by developing a public health approach to trauma that strengthens surveillance, prevention, screening, and treatment and supports trauma-informed systems. Children of deployed military personnel have more school, family, and peer-related emotional difficulties in comparison to national samples. Therefore, SAMHSA has identified military families as a priority population under this funding opportunity. Over the coming months, SAMHSA will be implementing a process that will develop a formal definition and standardized criteria for trauma-informed care and guidance for adaption to different service systems and sectors. Grantees of this program announcement will be encouraged to participate in this process. All SAMHSA grantees will be expected to align their programmatic activities with the resultant definition and standardized criteria of trauma-informed care. The National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative, National Center for Child Traumatic Stress grant is authorized under Section 582 of the Public Health Service Act, as amended. This announcement addresses Healthy People 2020 Mental Health and Mental Disorders Topic Area HP 2020-MHMD.