Description

On July 6, 2026,the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announced significant new funding for opportunities for grant programs to address addiction, overdose, and mental illness and to promote addiction recovery.  A press release provided the glowing recommendations of this initiative, summarized in part below.

Part of the Great American Recovery Initiative, access will expand to behavioral health services, including substance use disorder treatment, overdose prevention and response, mental health and suicide prevention, trauma-informed care, integrated health and mental health care, recovery supports for those in and out of treatment, even first responder training, privacy education and workforce development.

Fifteen grant programs will issue this new funding to applicable and qualified applicants.   This will expand treatment, strengthen recovery services, prevent overdoses, and provide local communities with needed tools to save lives and to restore families.

This is intended to address the full continuum of behavioral health needs, not just focusing on substance use disorder.  This will also include recovery services, prevention of overdoses, substance use prevention, expanded mental health care, with trauma-informed care, addiction treatment, and recovery support – even efforts to reverse overdoses.

The federal government purports to invest in evidence-based programs with community partnerships to save lives, improve outcomes, and heighten the health and well-being of everyone across the country.

Millions were designated to expand access to medications for opioid use disorder, treatment and recovery availability, with an eye to reduce unlawful opioid use, prescription opioid abuse, and narcotics overdoses.

Addition millions were designated to promote resiliency with sustainable infrastructure for school-based mental health programs and services, which will be integrated into existing educational systems.

More millions were designated for trauma-effective treatment for children, for first responder training, for mental health awareness, and for collaboration between physical medicine and mental health.

In addition, grants will focus on prevention programs to reduce overdose deaths, independent living skills for those in recovery, targeting of services to college students, and improve pain management by means other than prescription narcotics in emergency departments and hospitals.

Addition is recognized as a chronic disease to be address with better coordination across the government, private health care sectors, faith communities, and other private sector programs.

This is an intermediate webinar.

Areas Covered:-

The areas covered in this session include these learning objectives:

• Monies for medication-assisted treatment for prescription drug and opioid addiction;
• Effective wellness and resiliency in education;
• Focus on child traumatic stress initiatives;
• Enhancements to first responder training;
• Identifying mental health awareness training needs;
• Promotion of the integration of clinical practices between physical and mental health practice;
• Prevention of drug overdoses in all communities;
• Supporting treatment, recovery, and workforce;
• Promoting suicide prevention on college campuses;
• Establishing guidelines for emergency department alternatives to opioid prescribing;
• Expanding assertive community treatment for youth and others with mental illness and homelessness;
• Support, training, and mentoring of family members and primary care givers;
• Granting funds for recovery community services;
• Specializing in primary health care systems delivering recovery support services;
• Training and technical assistance to increase privacy for protected health information in substance use disorder treatment.

Why Should You Attend:-

This webinar examines the new federal funding available for programs to address substance use disorder treatment and mental health.

Over a quarter of a billion dollars has been earmarked for addiction, overdose, and mental illness to promote recovery.

This will have a huge impact on patients and persons availing themselves of mental health treatment for substance use disorder.

Erase the uncertainty and doubt about what the new federal funding does – and doesn’t – do to address addiction, overdose, and mental illness.

Who Should Attend:-

• Health care attorneys
• Primary care physicians
• Treating professionals for substance use disorder.