We wanted to share this message from SAMHSA about its Behavioral Health Equity Challenge.
Following the success of last year’s Recovery Innovation Challenge, I am pleased to announce tomorrow’s launch of SAMHSA’s Behavioral Health Equity Challenge: Outreach and Engagement Strategies for Underserved Racial and Ethnic Communities, organized by the Office of Behavioral Health Equity’s Elevate CBOs Initiative. The goal of this Challenge is to identify and highlight community-based organizations’ (CBO) innovative outreach and engagement strategies that improve access to behavioral health services in these communities. As CBOs often play an important role in addressing the behavioral health needs of the community, this challenge will inform us about community-based strategies to connect people to care.
The Behavioral Health Equity Challenge will accept submissions until June 8, 2023, and judging of submissions will take place in July to identify 10 winners. We aim to learn the following from the participants:
- What challenges have CBOs faced in connecting people from underserved racial and ethnic communities to behavioral health services?
- What outreach and engagement strategies or innovative methods have CBOs used to connect people from racial and ethnic underserved communities to behavioral health services?
- How do CBOs know their outreach and engagement strategies are successful? How do they measure their success?
- How do CBOs incorporate equity into their outreach and engagement strategies?
Organizing a Challenge is a team effort, and I want to thank those who contributed to this Challenge. I hope you will join me in supporting the Behavioral Health Equity Challenge by taking the actions below:
Share the Challenge notification among your networks.
– Promote the Challenge by using the Behavioral Health Equity Challenge background in your Zoom or Teams backdrop or insert the Challenge logo in your email signature block. These items are attached to this email.
Sign up to serve as a Judge for the Behavioral Health Equity Challenge via this link. (You may need to use the Microsoft Edge web browser.)
If you have any questions regarding this Challenge, please email [email protected].
Thank you for your support,
Miriam
Miriam E. Delphin-Rittmon, Ph.D.
Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
