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Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) – Center for Mental Health Services Does your public agency provide mental health services for children and their families? SAMHSA’s Center for Mental Health Services recently opened its 2021 Grants for Expansion and Sustainability of the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children with Serious Emotional Disturbances program (also known as System of Care (SOC) Expansion and Sustainability Grants). This program aims to improve mental health outcomes for children and youth (up to age 21) who have serious emotional disturbances (SED) and for their families. The deadline for applications is coming up quickly on February 5, 2021.

It’s January. Are you ready for a reset? Better yet, is your grant strategy ready for a reset? I am just hunching here but with a year like 2020, I think the answer may be “yes” (and probably in many more ways than just grants)!  There are many different tools and tactics to reset your grant strategy.

Department of Labor – Employment and Training Administration Does your organization provide education, occupational skills training, and/or employment services to at-risk youth? The Department of Labor (DOL) – Employment and Training Administration recently opened applications for its YouthBuild program. This program supports organizations that provide pre-apprenticeship services to youth ages 16 to 24, while these at-risk youth perform meaningful work and service within their communities.

As we say goodbye to the year that seemed it would never end, we are looking forward to 2021 with renewed hope. In the spirit of new beginnings, our January blog series is focused on resetting. Be it working from home, adjusting offices to allow for social distancing, or changing jobs altogether, a lot of us unexpectedly found ourselves working in new spaces over the course of the last year. If you’re like some of us, your new workspace might not be what most people consider “permanent” (maybe because, also like us, you were hoping it would be a more temporary solution). Or perhaps you’ve weathered the storm that was 2020 in the same space you’ve worked for years. Either way, the start of the new year is a great excuse to reset, rethink, and reclaim your workspace so you can prepare to take on a new year of possibilities.

Is your organization looking for project-based funding to support activities that further the arts? The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) recently opened applications for its Grants for Arts Projects program. This program supports public engagement with – and access to – various art forms across a variety of disciplines (dance, folk and traditional, media arts, music, visual arts, etc.), artwork creation, arts education, and integration of the arts into community life.

I’m not the type of person who sends out holiday cards. I want to be that type of person. I feel like I should be that type of person. After all, I love receiving them; the photos of our friends and family and their “year-in-review” recaps always bring a smile to my face. And I grew up with a mom who is great at sending holiday cards. I have vivid memories of her pulling out the notebook filled with addresses, often with amendments and notes penned neatly beside certain names. She’d carefully address and stuff envelopes with a card and letter detailing our family’s updates and accomplishments. By giving my brother and me some editorial power over our own paragraphs (so we could keep our very cool reputations intact) and soliciting our help with the envelope stuffing, she was giving us a primer in relationship maintenance.

Department of Health and Human Services – Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Attention institutions of higher education! The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) recently opened a funding opportunity focused on mental health services for college students. The Garrett Lee Smith (GLS) Campus Suicide Prevention program provides institutions of higher education (IHEs) with funding to develop the infrastructure and sustainable capacity for effective identification, intervention, and suicide prevention programming on college campuses.

This time of year naturally leads people to reflect back and start looking forward, generating new goals and resolutions. Respectfully, I ask, “How is that even possible with a year like 2020?” It’s been a year filled with fear, sadness, uncertainty, confusion, and constant change, to say the least. Even our everyday language has taken on a whole new plethora of words like COVID-19, pandemic, social distance, quarantine, contact tracing, essential businesses, and flattening the curve. By the way, if you are looking for that blog that says better days are ahead, here is my warning: STOP! This blog is about realness – real thoughts, real feelings, real struggles. I wish I could say that I thought of writing this myself, but I am not that bold. I owe it to a great colleague of mine who challenged me to bring out the realness and ugly truths that may help me (and possibly even others) sort this out in my head.

Department of Health and Human Services - Health Resources and Services Administration Does your organization provide advanced nursing education? The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) recently opened a funding opportunity through its Advanced Nursing Education – Sexual Assault Nurse Examiners (ANE-SANE) program. This program focuses on recruitment, training, and certification of registered nurses (RNs), advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs), and forensic nurses (FNs) to practice as sexual assault nurse examiners (SANEs). By increasing the supply and distribution of qualified working SANEs, the ANE-SANE program improves overall access to sexual assault forensic examinations.

Department of Health and Human Services - Health Resources and Services Administration Does your organization provide educational programs for individuals pursuing nursing degrees? The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) recently opened a funding opportunity through its Nursing Workforce Diversity (NWD) program. NWD provides funding to assist students from underrepresented and disadvantaged backgrounds as they progress through the educational pipeline – from enrollment to graduation – toward becoming practicing registered nurses. NWD programs accomplish this through the implementation of evidence-based strategies that are proven to support students from disadvantaged backgrounds (including ethnic and racial minorities) in completing their degree programs.