SAMHSA’s Office of Behavioral Health Equity is conducting the Behavioral Health Equity Challenge: Outreach and Engagement Strategies for Underserved Racial and Ethnic Communities. The goal of this challenge is to identify and highlight community-based organization (CBO) outreach and engagement strategies that increase access to behavioral health (mental health and/or substance use) services for racial and ethnic underserved communities. As CBOs are the primary participants for the Behavioral Health Equity Challenge, they often have an important role in addressing the needs of their community members. This challenge allows participants to share their innovative strategies to help underserved racial and ethnic communities access behavioral health services.
The Challenge fund has $500,000 available for up to ten awards through this competition. Four awards will be dedicated to the winning strategies that address mental health, three will be dedicated to the winning strategies that address substance use prevention, and three will be dedicated to the winning strategies that address substance use treatment. The challenge prize for each winner is expected to be $50,000 plus multiple opportunities for recognition. Submissions will be accepted until June 8, 2023 at 5 pm EST.
SAMHSA aims to learn the following from the behavioral health community:
- What challenges have you faced in connecting people from underserved racial and ethnic communities to behavioral health services?
- What outreach and engagement strategies or innovative methods have you used to connect people from underserved racial and ethnic communities to behavioral health services?
- How do you know your outreach and engagement strategies are successful? How do you measure your success?
- How do you incorporate equity into your outreach and engagement strategies?
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