Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration - SAMHSA's Strategic Direction

SAMHSA's Strategic Direction

In 2010, SAMHSA identified 8 Strategic Initiatives to focus the Agency's work. Below are the 8 areas and goals associated with each category:

• Prevention of Substance Abuse and Mental Illness - Create prevention-prepared communities in which individuals, families, schools, workplaces, and communities take action to promote emotional health; and, to prevent and reduce mental illness, substance (including tobacco) abuse, and, suicide, across the lifespan
• Trauma and Justice - Reduce the pervasive, harmful, and costly public-health impacts of violence and trauma by integrating trauma-informed approaches throughout health and behavioral healthcare systems; also, to divert people with substance-abuse and mental disorders away from criminal-/juvenile-justice systems, and into trauma-informed treatment and recovery.
• Military Families – Active, Guard, Reserve, and Veteran - Support of our service men & women, and their families and communities, by leading efforts to ensure needed behavioral health services are accessible to them, and successful outcomes.
• Health Reform - Broaden health coverage and the use of evidence-based practices to increase access to appropriate and high quality care; also, to reduce existing disparities between: the availability of substance abuse and mental disorders; and, those for other medical conditions.
• Housing and Homelessness - To provide housing for, and to reduce the barriers to accessing recovery-sustaining programs for, homeless persons with mental and substance abuse disorders (and their families)
• Health Information Technology for Behavioral Health Providers - To ensure that the behavioral-health provider network -- including prevention specialists and consumer providers -- fully participate with the general healthcare delivery system, in the adoption of health information technology.
• Data, Outcomes, and Quality – Demonstrating Results - Realize an integrated data strategy that informs policy, measures program impact, and results in improved quality of services and outcomes for individuals, families, and communities.
• Public Awareness and Support - Increase understanding of mental and substance abuse prevention & treatment services, to achieve the full potential of prevention, and, to help people recognize and seek assistance for these health conditions with the same urgency as any other health condition.

Their budget for the Fiscal Year 2010 was about $3.6 billion. It was re-authorized for FY2011.