SAMHSA National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative – Treatment and Service Adaptation Centers (TSA) Category II Grant

State and local governments
Federally recognized American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) Tribes and tribal organizations
Urban Indian organizations
Public or private universities and colleges
Community- and faith-based organizations
Tribal organization means the recognized body of any AI/AN Tribe; any legally established organization of American Indians/Alaska Natives which is controlled, sanctioned, or chartered by such governing body or which is democratically elected by the adult members of the Indian community to be served by such organization and which includes the maximum participation of American Indians/Alaska Natives in all phases of its activities. Consortia of Tribes or tribal organizations are eligible to apply, but each participating entity must indicate its approval.

Applicants may also apply for the NCTSI Community Treatment and Services Centers and the National Center for Child Traumatic Stress cooperative agreements. If approved for funding in more than one National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative program, an award may be made in only one of the programs.

Applications that do not receive a fundable score on the core TSA Center requirements will not be considered for supplemental funding. In an effort to ensure balance/sufficient geographic distribution of Partnership and Training and Dissemination Opportunities in selected areas of trauma, SAMHSA may make a funding decision regarding the Partnership or Training and Dissemination supplements according to the region in which the which they propose to operate, thereby ensuring adequate coverage of the requisite trauma categories.

The statutory authority for this program prohibits grants to for-profit agencies.

The overall goal of the National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative (NCTSI) is to improve treatment and services for children and adolescents who have experienced traumatic events and to increase access to these treatments and services throughout the United States. The initiative is designed to address child trauma issues by creating a National Network of grantees–the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN)–that works collaboratively to develop and promote effective trauma treatment, services and other resources for children and adolescents exposed to an array of traumatic events. The NCTSN Centers collaborate to develop, implement, evaluate effective trauma treatment and services, and partner with other community agencies to promote service delivery approaches so that trauma services are effectively implemented within local child-serving community service 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.

To date, NCTSI has developed and implemented effective interventions to reduce immediate distress from exposure to traumatic events; developed and provided training in trauma-focused services for use in child mental health clinics, schools, child welfare and protective services, among other service areas; and developed widely used intervention protocols for disaster victims.

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) is composed of three types of centers:

The National Center for Child Traumatic Stress – (Category I) works with SAMHSA to develop and maintain the collaborative network structure, oversee resource development and dissemination, and coordinate national trauma education and training efforts;
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, training, implementation, evaluation and dissemination of effective treatment and service approaches for communities and service systems across the country; and
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 network 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.

This RFA is part of SAMHSA’s effort to achieve the goals of the Trauma and Justice Strategic Initiative by reducing the impact of trauma and violence on children, youth, and families and addressing trauma-related issues throughout behavioral health, health, and social service systems. With this program, SAMHSA expects to implement effective trauma-focused and trauma-informed treatment and services in community settings and in youth-serving service systems and collaborate with other Network Center’s on clinical issues, service approaches, policy, financing, and training issues. More information on SAMHSA’s Strategic Initiatives is available at the SAMHSA website: http://www.samhsa.gov/About/strategy.aspx.

In FY 2012, SAMHSA is planning to award up to 16 NCTSN Treatment and Service Adaptation Center grants. Among the 16 successful TSA grantees, up to nine of these entities may receive supplemental funding. SAMHSA is particularly interested in enhancing and expanding the Network’s efforts in large-scale training and dissemination of NCTSN developed clinical and service interventions to communities and service systems throughout the country, and the application of implementation science to ensure effective and sustained intervention implementation. Applicants may propose to enhance and expand their Centers training and implementation activities to include one of the following supplemental funding activities:

TSA Partnership Supplements – are expected to include greater participation of national intervention development and service expertise and take a national perspective on intervention development, training, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination.

TSA Training and Dissemination Supplements – focus on large-scale training and dissemination of existing Network-developed trauma interventions and products.

SAMHSA plans to fund up to five TSA Partnership Supplements and up to four TSA Training and Dissemination Supplements among the top TSA Category II grantees in priority score order. (For more information see Award Review Information, Review and Selection Process, V.2, page 32 of the RFA)

The NCTSN has traditionally developed and provided treatment and services that are accessed by a high percentage of racial and ethnic minority youth from low-income families. It is anticipated the NCTSN will continue to be a significant resource for these populations, contributing to increasing access to effective care for these groups and reducing behavioral health disparity.

For the purpose of this funding announcement, “trauma-focused” refers to the interventions, resources, products, etc., that specifically address the trauma experience of children, adolescents and their families; and “trauma-informed” refers to the interventions, resources, products, etc., in service systems that provide supportive services for children and adolescents that have experienced trauma.

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.

National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative grants are 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.