Cooperative Agreement for the Drug Demand Reduction Initiative for Iraq

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in collaboration with the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, is accepting applications for a fiscal year (FY) 2011 Cooperative Agreement for the Drug Demand Reduction Initiative for Iraq. The purpose of this program is to enhance substance abuse prevention, treatment and recovery support services in Iraq. Toward this goal, the grantee will provide support to Iraq's Ministry of Health (MOH) for the development of a Center of Excellence on Substance Abuse Services (COE-SAS) at Baghdad's Medical City complex. Through training and technical assistance, the grantee will support the following activities: Develop a strategic plan for the establishment of the COE-SAS that will phase in substance abuse training and research activities for Iraqi providers and program administrators to acquire new therapeutic, business and research skills. Assess the training and development needs of Iraqi staff and other health care providers, and provide intensive training (mainly in the Middle East) in substance abuse and recovery support services, in order to develop clinical skills. Develop a cadre of primary care providers trained to screen and diagnose substance use disorders and provide brief interventions, and to refer patients who need more intensive treatment to ongoing treatment and recovery support services (Screening, Brief Intervention, Referral and Treatment - SBIRT). Establish a Community Epidemiology Workgroup which will secure updated information on the nature and extent of the substance abuse problem in Iraq while building epidemiological capacity. Identify Iraqi candidates to become substance abuse researchers in order to build research capacity. With this program, SAMHSA and the State Department expect a reduction in drug-related crime in Iraq by addressing and reducing the demand for drugs in Iraq. This initiative builds on work begun as part of the 2010 Iraq-SAMHSA Initiative, which supported a team of behavioral health professionals from the Government of Iraq (GOI Team) who visited substance abuse sites in the U.S. to learn about establishing substance abuse services and training.