Expanding psychology's role in advancing health is one of APA's strategic plan goals. To increase our nation's overall health and wellness, we advocate for the inclusion of psychological services in health care, seek funding for innovative programs that incorporate psychologists' expertise and showcase the ways psychological research findings can help reduce health disparities. One part of those efforts is our partnership with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA.
As many of you know, SAMHSA is the agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that leads public health efforts to advance the mental and behavioral health of the nation. The agency's mission is "to reduce the impact of substance abuse and mental illness on America's communities."
APA's health-care priorities are reflected in many SAMHSA initiatives. The agency administers block grants to states for community mental health and substance abuse services and provides grants through many programs, such as the Garrett Lee Smith Campus Suicide Prevention Program, the Safe Schools/Healthy Students initiative, the National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative and the Jail Diversion Program, to name a few.
Among our long-standing partnerships with SAMHSA are our Minority Fellowship Program, Project HOPE and Recovery to Practice initiatives. APA's Minority Fellowship Program is a training, mentoring and career-development program dedicated to increasing the number of ethnic-minority professionals to serve ethnic-minority communities. Project HOPE supports psychologists by increasing their cultural competence and capacity for HIV/AIDS research and treatment. The Recovery to Practice initiative informs psychologists about state-of-the-art approaches that improve the lives of those with serious mental illness.
Just as we look for guidance and support from SAMHSA, so too does SAMHSA look to APA and other stakeholders for input. For example, I met with SAMHSA Administrator Pam Hyde, along with some of our senior staff, several months ago to explore mutual areas of interest for further collaboration, most notably related to integrated health care and workforce development. These opportunities are currently being pursued at the staff level. On a related front, APA recently provided formal written comments on SAMHSA's draft strategic plan for 2015–18. Our comments urged the agency to fully implement the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008. APA also called upon SAMHSA to help ensure full integration of mental and behavioral health care into physical health services and to increase access to psychological services through the Affordable Care Act. In addition, APA urged the agency to focus more on the mental and behavioral health needs of older Americans, especially those over 65, since depression and suicide are serious problems for this population. Finally, we urged SAMHSA to focus on violence prevention along with its efforts on suicide prevention, to support integrated care, and to increase access to psychological services in Medicare and Medicaid, among other priorities.
We are grateful for our close partnership with SAMHSA and fortunate for the dedicated psychologists in key agency positions. Among these are Larke Huang, PhD, who serves as senior advisor to the administrator focused on children, youth and families and as director of the Office of Behavioral Health Equity, and Richard McKeon, PhD, who leads the Suicide Prevention Branch of SAMHSA's Center for Mental Health Services.
Our collaboration with SAMHSA creates valuable opportunities to highlight innovation and best practices to promote mental health and substance abuse prevention and treatment. Another key partnership has focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues where SAMHSA is taking the lead in disseminating evidence-based affirmative treatment models, approaches that are consistent with APA's policies. We recently held a roundtable with SAMHSA and other HHS partners on how the Affordable Care Act can reduce LGBT health disparities, and this spring we will host a conference with SAMHSA on reducing behavioral health disparities.
We look forward to this strategic partnership with SAMHSA continuing to build momentum and offer opportunities for APA to promote the overall health of our nation.
