Child Welfare - Assessment, Access and Linkages to Effective Behavioral, Mental Health and Support Services

• State governments
• County governments
• City or township governments
• Public and State controlled institutions of higher education
• Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
• Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
• Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
• Nonprofits without 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
• Private institutions of higher education
• For profit organizations other than small businesses
• Small businesses

Eligible applicants include State, tribal or county public child welfare agencies and private child welfare agencies under contract with the public child welfare agency.

If the primary applicant responsible for administering the cooperative agreement is not a public child welfare agency, the applicant must document a strong partnership with the public child welfare agency(ies) with responsibility for administering the child welfare program(s) in the targeted geographical area(s) and court(s) having jurisdiction over the targeted child welfare population.

Applicants are required to partner with key agencies, e.g., a university, medical center, mental health agency, and/or community-based provider with nationally demonstrated expertise in child traumatic stress interventions and experience with the population(s) that the applicant proposes to serve with their proposed project.

Collaborative efforts are strongly encouraged, but applicants must identify a primary applicant responsible for administering the cooperative agreement.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to solicit proposals for projects that will improve the social and emotional well-being of targeted children and youth in child welfare systems that have mental and behavioral health needs. These grants, in the form of cooperative agreements, are designed to:

• Assist public child welfare agencies, through interagency collaboration, in creating a flexible service array that provides early access to effective mental and behavioral health services that match the needs of children, youth, and families in the service population;


• Support the implementation of evidence-based or evidence-informed screening, assessment, case planning, and service array reconfiguration practices in child welfare systems while simultaneously targeting and de-scaling practices and services that: 1) are not effective; and/or 2) do not meet the assessed needs of the target population;


• Identify factors and strategies associated with successful installation, implementation, and sustainability of service system changes, and;


• Evaluate the effect of implemented system changes on safety, permanency and well-being outcomes.

Applicants should carefully review this full FOA and consider the level of effort necessary to meet the purpose of the FOA and the evaluation-related requirements. To fully meet the intent of the FOA, grantees must adopt and implement a combination of specific, clearly-defined screening, assessment, case planning and service array reconfiguration activities. To do so, grantees must ensure that their proposed interventions and integrated programs are an appropriate fit for the characteristics and needs of the groups targeted for services. Further, the grantee's approach and plan must be feasible based on the capacity, resources, collaborative infrastructure, and conditions of the systems in which the program strategies are to be delivered.

Grant funds may be used for the process of service transformation efforts to improve access to appropriate, evidence-based or evidence-informed mental and behavioral health services. Activities may include, but are not limited to building collaborative partnerships, assessment, planning, capacity-building, training, installation, implementation, evaluation, and dissemination. Successful applicants will design a plan to sustain service transformations within their child welfare service delivery systems.