Funding Opportunity |
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Standard Grant Announcement: STS |
Department of Health and Human Services
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
Service-to-Science Grants - STS 05 PA
I. FUNDING OPPORTUNITY DESCRIPTION1. INTRODUCTIONThe Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) announces its intent to solicit applications for Service-to-Science grants. This program announcement must be considered in conjunction with a full Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), this specifies the grant program’s purpose, the target population, and other requirements of the program. These grants will document and evaluate innovative practices that address critical substance abuse and mental health service gaps but not yet formally evaluated. Applicants who seek to stabilize, document, and evaluate promising practices for mental health and/or substance abuse treatment, prevention, and support services should apply for awards under this announcement. SAMHSA also funds grants under three other standard grant announcements:
This announcement describes the general program design and provides application instructions for all SAMHSA Service-to-Science Grants. The availability of funds for specific Service-to-Science Grants will be announced in supplementary Notices of Funding Availability (NOFAs) in the Federal Register and at www.grants.gov - the Federal grant announcement web page. SAMHSA’s Service-to-Science Grants are authorized under Section 509, 516 and/or 520A of the Public Health Service Act, unless otherwise specified in a NOFA in the Federal Register and on www.grants.gov. Typically, funding for Service-to-Science Grants will be targeted to specific populations and/or issue areas, which will be specified in the NOFAs. The NOFAs will also:
End of 2. EXPECTATIONSWhile there is a well-established evidence base for many behavioral health practices, critical service gaps exist for which there is no formal evidence base. Stakeholders have developed many innovative practices to fill these gaps, but they may lack the expertise and/or resources to formally document and evaluate their practices. Consequently, it is not clear whether these innovative practices are effective, and they are not disseminated widely. SAMHSA seeks to encourage continued development of evidence-based practices to fill service gaps by documenting and evaluating promising stakeholder-initiated practices. This program will help organizations that have identified promising new practices to evaluate and package those innovations for review and inclusion in the National Registry of Effective Programs and Practices (NREPP) as well as for further research. 2.1 Program Design SAMHSA will fund Service-to-Science grants in two phases. You may apply for Phase I and II combined or for Phase II alone. Applications for Phase I alone will not be accepted. The program design requirements for Phase I and Phase II are described below. Applicants must, however, consult the NOFA for any program design requirements (e.g., required activities) specific to the funding opportunity. Phase I provides support for up to 2 years to stabilize and document an existing practice that fills an identified gap. During Phase I, you may:
The desired endpoint of Phase I is readiness to conduct a high-quality, systematic evaluation. Phase II provides support for 1-3 years to evaluate the success of the practice. The purpose of Phase II is to conduct a high-quality, systematic evaluation to document short-term outcomes and demonstrate that the practice is worthy of an experimental study. On the basis of the evaluation, you may need to further refine the practice and further refine the practice manual. The evaluation may use a pre-post approach, an open trial model, other quasi or non-experimental model, or an experimental model. The desired endpoint for Phase II is readiness to submit the practice for inclusion in SAMHSA’s NREPP and/or to submit applications to various research institutions for additional research. SAMHSA’s Service-to-Science grants will provide support to stabilize practices so that they may be documented and evaluated. However, these grants are not intended to support development of entirely new practices. The practices must be in place and operational for at least one year prior to application, and you must have at least anecdotal evidence that the practice is effective. You may apply for a combination of Phases I and II in a single grant application if you have identified a priority gap for which a fully developed and documented practice currently does not exist.
At the conclusion of Phase I, SAMHSA staff will review your progress to determine whether Phase II is warranted. This decision will be based on review of the documentation required by the end of Phase I, as described under the Performance Expectations section below. You must provide compelling evidence that the practice has been sufficiently developed and documented to be evaluated and has produced positive results. For practices that are already fully developed, implemented, stabilized, and documented but that have not yet been formally evaluated, you may apply for Phase II only. Applications for Phase I alone will not be accepted. Depending on your readiness, you may receive a combination of Phases I and II for a period of up to, but not more than, 5 years. You may apply for a shorter grant period than the maximum, and SAMHSA may award a grant for a shorter time period than you request. 2.2 Establishing Need Service-to-Science grants are intended to develop solutions to widespread needs. This grant program is not intended to address a local community’s need for funds to solve a local problem. Therefore, you must demonstrate that the broader substance abuse and/or mental health field—not just your local community—has a need for the practice. You must also show that no well-documented solution to the problem exists, and that your local community can support an evaluation that will increase the knowledge base of the field. 2.3 Allowable Activities Phase I: Practice Development and Documentation In Phase I, you will further develop and document the practice. The types of activities that may be needed and that are allowable include, but are not limited to, the following:
Phase II: Practice Evaluation During Phase II, SAMHSA will (if necessary) continue to fund implementation of the practice being evaluated. Other types of allowable activities include, but are not limited to, the following:
2.4 Performance Expectations All grantees will be expected to meet the following performance requirements by the end of their grant projects. Phase I By the end of Phase I, documentation for the practice must include:
Phase II By the end of Phase II, the evaluation of the practice must have demonstrated that:
In addition, at the end of Phase II, grantees must:
2.5 Data and Performance Measurement The Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (P.L.103-62, or “GPRA”) requires all Federal agencies to set program performance targets and report annually on the degree to which the previous year’s targets were met. Agencies are expected to evaluate their programs regularly and to use results of these evaluations to explain their successes and failures and justify requests for funding. To meet the GPRA requirements, SAMHSA must collect performance data (i.e., “GPRA data”) from grantees. Grantees are required to report these GPRA data to SAMHSA on a timely basis. Specifically, grantees will be required to provide data on a set of required measures, as specified in the NOFA. The data collection tools to be used for reporting the required data will be provided in the application kits distributed by SAMHSA’s clearinghouses and posted on SAMHSA’s website along with each NOFA. In your application, you must demonstrate your ability to collect and report on these measures, and you may be required to provide some baseline data. The terms and conditions of the grant award also will specify the data to be submitted and the schedule for submission. Grantees will be required to adhere to these terms and conditions of award. Applicants should be aware that SAMHSA is working to develop a set of required core performance measures for each of SAMHSA’s standard grants (i.e., Services Grants, Infrastructure Grants, Best Practices Planning and Implementation Grants, and Service-to-Science Grants). As this effort proceeds, some of the data collection and reporting requirements included in SAMHSA’s NOFAs may change. All grantees will be expected to comply with any changes in data collection requirements that occur during the grantee’s project period. 2.6 Grantee Meetings You must plan to send a minimum of two people (including the Project Director) to at least one joint grantee meeting in each year of the grant, and you must include funding for this travel in your budget. At these meetings, grantees will present the results of their projects and Federal staff will provide technical assistance. Each meeting will be 3 days. These meetings will usually be held in the Washington, D.C., area and attendance is mandatory. |