On September 1, 2022 the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SMAHSA) released a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), “Resiliency in Communities After Stress and Trauma” (ReCAST). Grant writers should have taken note, because it had $10 million available, with grants up to $1 million per year, to help communities that have recently faced “civil unrest.” Grant writers will need to carefully parse this SAMHSA NOFO, because the specific language being used by ReCAST is peculiar; take a careful look at what it says:
The purpose of this program is to promote resilience, trauma-informed approaches, and equity in communities that have recently faced civil unrest, community violence, and/or collective trauma within the past 24 months; and assist high-risk youth and families through the implementation of evidence-based violence prevention, and community youth engagement programs
Okay, so SAMHSA wants applicants in such communities—but which communities are they? SAMHSA doesn’t say. SAMHSA also doesn’t clearly define what it means by “unrest, community violence, and/or collective trauma:” but what counts as traumatic? Applicants might reasonably ask this question. What counts as unrest? We don’t get any definitions from the NOFO, so grant writers must try as best we can to imagine whether the experience of any given community counts and meets these vague descriptors. Twenty-four months, though, is a specific-enough timeframe that we suspect SAMHSA has some specific communities in mind, which would be nice to know, but SAMHSA won’t share what the intended ReCAST target communities are.
Two words in the program’s purpose are also doing a lot of work: “and/or.” That implies a community can be eligible if it has had civil unrest, OR community violence, OR collective trauma. Does a natural disaster, for example, count as “community violence?” Does it count as “collective trauma?” In the case of ReCAST, SAMHSA doesn’t say, and won’t say. I wrote to SAMHSA’s contact person, Jennifer Treger, for clarification, and she unhelpfully cited the definition that’s already in the NOFO. She wrote that “You can determine if you feel your community meets the definition for Collective Trauma as stated in the NOFO. We cannot tell you whether or not you should apply.” I wrote back to her, asking for more clarify, but am not optimistic that I’ll get any. This means that, for a good grant writer with imagination, almost any community can be described in such a way as to fall within SAMHSA’s opaque criteria.
Still, ReCAST’s $1 million per year was attractive enough to encourage applicants, and the ReCAST project period lasts for up to four years; $4 million was (and is) a solid amount of money for what seems to amount to walkin’-around money. SAMHSA’s ReCAST activities are mostly around process, not outcomes: grantees should convene “a coalition of community stakeholders,” prepare a needs assessment, sign MOUs with other organizations, develop strategic plans, and that sort of thing. In other words, SAMHSA’s ReCAST funding can easily be used to fund services and staff positions that a given organization is already doing and already using, respectively. The focus on community engagement means there are no effective outcomes that need to be achieved. There are also a bunch of mandatory activities like mental health literacy, cultural competency, and similarly nebulous activities. There are supposed data collection requirements, but the data to be collected are very much part of the proposal world, not the real world.
Lots of organizations can use SAMHSA ReCAST funding to fund things they’re already basically doing, so grant writers should not be intimidated. Need help on your ReCAST application? Call us at 800.540.8906 ext.1, or email us at seliger@seliger.com, for a fast free fee quote to help your organization get its piece of the ReCAST pie. The 2022 deadline was October 17. When ReCAST comes back around, don’t be left out. Act in advance of the deadline. We can help with ReCAST, or with any SAMHSA application.
