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SAMHSA Awards $3.4 Million to Vermont to Treat Persons With Co-Occurring Substance Abuse and Mental Disorders

Posted on: Tuesday, 12 July 2005, 09:01 CDT

WASHINGTON, July 12 /PRNewswire/ -- The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) today announced a grant award totaling $3.4 million over five years to the state of Vermont to increase the capacity of state treatment systems to provide effective, comprehensive, integrated and evidence-based treatment services to persons with co-occurring substance abuse and mental disorders.

SAMHSA is awarding the grant to Vermont to stimulate the state to provide accessible, coordinated treatment to persons who have at least one mental disorder as well as an alcohol or drug use disorder. These grants are part of the State Incentive Grant for Treatment of Persons with Co-Occurring Related and Mental Disorders (COSIG) program. Vermont will receive $1,041,267 for the first year.

"Because people with co-occurring disorders cannot separate their addiction from their mental disorder, they should not have to negotiate separate service delivery systems," SAMHSA Administrator Charles Curie said. "When individuals are treated only for one of the two disorders and the other remains untreated, both usually get worse. Additional complications often arise, including the risk for other medical problems, suicide, unemployment, homelessness, incarceration, and separation from families and friends."

The grant is designed to put in place state infrastructure to enhance capacity to treat those with co-occurring mental and substance use disorders. With this new grant, Vermont is now one of 15 states developing this infrastructure and evaluating the validity of performance measures developed to evaluate these programs.

Vermont's Integrated Services Project will focus on ensuring that service providers screen for both mental and substance use disorders, and perform integrated assessments to understand the course, severity and interaction of co-occurring disorders on the individual, and then plan the appropriate treatment. The Vermont program will train local clinical and administrative leaders on the principles and practices of integrated treatment using evidence-based approaches to prevention, intervention, screening, assessment, treatment and recovery services.

A state-level management group will be tasked to redesign information and business systems to accommodate integrated services. Vermont will also use performance measures adopted by the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors and the Mental Health Program Directors.

Vermont is expected to receive $1,051,966 the second year; $1,062,271 the third year; $91,362, the fourth year and $93,324 for the fifth year.

SAMHSA is a public health agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The agency is responsible for improving the accountability, capacity and effectiveness of the nation's substance abuse prevention, addictions treatment and mental health service delivery systems.

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

CONTACT: SAMHSA Press Office, +1-240-276-2130

Web site: http://www.samhsa.gov/

Source: PRNewswire

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