FY 2008 RFA Grant Application Information: Grants to Expand Substance Abuse Treatment Capacity for Drug Courts (Short Title: Treatment Drug Courts)

FY 2008 RFA Grant Application Information (RFA)

Application Information Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT)

Request for Applications (RFA)
Grants to Expand Substance Abuse Treatment Capacity for Drug Courts
(Short Title: Treatment Drug Courts)

(Initial Announcement)

Request for Applications (RFA) No. TI-08-007
Posting on Grants.gov: February 05, 2008
Receipt date: April 10, 2008
Announcement Type: Initial

Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) No.: 93.243

Key Dates:

Application Deadline	Applications are due by April 10, 2008.
Intergovernmental Review (E.O. 12372)	Applicants must comply with E.O. 12372 if their State(s) participates. Review process recommendations from the State Single Point of Contact (SPOC) are due no later than 60 days after application deadline.
Public Health System Impact Statement (PHSIS)/Single State Agency Coordination	Applicants must send the PHSIS to appropriate State and local health agencies by application deadline. Comments from Single State Agency are due no later than 60 days after application deadline.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment is accepting applications for fiscal year (FY) 2008 Grants to Expand Substance Abuse Treatment in Adult Drug Courts. The purpose of the program is to expand and/or enhance substance abuse treatment services in “problem solving” courts which use the treatment drug court model in order to provide alcohol and drug treatment, recovery support services supporting substance abuse treatment, screening, assessment, case management, and program coordination to adult defendants/offenders. Priority for the use of the funding should be given to addressing gaps in the continuum of treatment.

Grantees will be expected to provide a coordinated, multi-system approach designed to combine the sanctioning power of treatment drug courts with effective treatment services to break the cycle of criminal behavior, alcohol and/or drug use, and incarceration or other penalties. Treatment Drug Courts use regular appearances of the client before a judge (who is part of, or guided by, a team of relevant professionals) in order to monitor compliance with court ordered conditions and substance abuse treatment.

SAMHSA intends that its services grants result in the delivery of services as soon as possible after award. Service delivery should begin by the 4th month of the project at the latest.

Treatment Drug Court grants are authorized under Section 509 of the Public Health Service Act, as amended. This announcement addresses Healthy People 2010 focus area 26 (Substance Abuse) of the Public Health Service Act.

Eligibility

In the Treatment Drug Court model, judges have the authority to assign clients to treatment facilities/programs as they deem appropriate. In other words, the drug court judge, not the treatment program, is the catalyst for enrollment into community-based treatment programming. Because the Treatment Drug Court judge is the pivotal figure and not the public and private nonprofit organization, SAMHSA/CSAT is restricting eligibility to existing individual adult treatment drug courts that have demonstrated relationships/agreements with existing community-based substance abuse treatment providers in order to create the necessary networks to successfully implement these grants.

Furthermore, it is the intention of this program to provide funding to enhance and/or expand treatment and recovery support for individual drug courts. Some State or County Court integrated/consolidated systems require that individual drug courts apply through the State or County. In those cases, if the State or County is the applicant, it will be the award recipient and the entity responsible for satisfying the grant requirements. This approach is permitted, but all grant funds awarded must be dedicated to the individual drug court with the exception of a small set aside, not to exceed two percent of the total award, that is permissible to cover the cost of administration and oversight of the grant.

This grant program is not intended to provide start-up funds to create new treatment drug courts. Therefore, it is essential that applicant drug courts have been operational for at least one year at the time of application. Operational is defined as a judge being designated as a “drug court” judge with a “drug court” docket of cases and seeing defendants in “drug court” on a regular and recurring basis for at least one year prior to the submission of the grant application. By signing the cover page (SF 424 v2) of the application, the authorized representative of the applicant organization is certifying that the Treatment Drug Court for which grant funds are requested is operational as defined above.

Award Information

Funding Mechanism:	Grant
Anticipated Total Available Funding:	$5.4 million
Anticipated Number of Awards:	Up to 18 grants
Anticipated Award Amount:	Up to $300,000 (direct and indirect costs) per year)
Length of Project Period:	Up to 3 years

Proposed budgets cannot exceed $300,000 in total costs (direct and indirect) in any year of the proposed project. Annual continuation awards will depend on the availability of funds, grantee progress in meeting project goals and objectives, timely submission of required data and reports, and compliance with all terms and conditions of award.

Applicants should be aware that the amount to be awarded for continuation awards in year 3 is expected to be 95% of the amount available for continuation awards in year 2. This is being done to create a pool of funds for supplemental performance-based awards (described below). [Note: Applicants should not reduce their requested third year amounts relative to year 2; this adjustment will be made by SAMHSA at the time the year 3 continuation awards are negotiated.]

Supplemental Awards Based on Performance: Section VI-2, Administrative and National Policy Requirements, of this RFA discusses a grantee’s proposed performance targets and explains that failure to meet stated goals and objectives may result in suspension or termination of the grant award, or in the reduction or withholding of continuation awards. Conversely, a Treatment Drug Court grantee that exceeds its performance targets or demonstrates efficiencies may receive a supplemental award based on performance to maintain its high level of performance. For year 3 of the Treatment Drug Court grant program, CSAT will review each grantee’s Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) data submissions and assess whether a grantee has: 1) met or exceeded its target for the number of clients served by 25 percent or more; 2) met or exceeded its target for 6 month follow-up rates; and 3) provided services within approved cost bands. Any grantee that has demonstrated appropriate financial management of the grant and has exceeded its targets for the number of clients served by 25 percent or more, exceeded its target for 6 month follow-ups, and provided services within allowable cost bands, may receive a supplemental award of up to 5 percent of the third year requested amount based on performance. Supplemental award amounts will be determined on a sliding scale based on availability of funds and the grantee’s achievement of performance goals and demonstration of sound fiscal management. Applicants should be aware that SAMHSA/CSAT does not plan to make supplemental awards to all grantees, and that is it possible that no grantees will receive supplemental awards based on performance.

Eligible grantees will be asked to submit a narrative and budget justification for the supplemental award that maintains the increase in its targets during the final year of the project. The supplemental award based on performance is for the purpose of the grantee maintaining, at a minimum, the additional number of clients for the remainder of the project.

A grantee receiving a supplemental award based on performance may be subject to additional site visits and/or audits to verify the accuracy of the client data reported.

Contact Information

For questions about program issues contact:

Holly Rogers
Center for Substance Abuse Treatment
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
1 Choke Cherry Road
Room 5-1014
Rockville, Maryland 20857
(240) 276-2916
holly.rogers@samhsa.hhs.gov

For questions on grants management issues contact:

Kathleen Sample
Office of Program Services, Division of Grants Management
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
1 Choke Cherry Road
Room 7-1089
Rockville, Maryland 20857
(240) 276-1407
kathleen.sample@samhsa.hhs.gov

Documents needed to complete a grant application:

Download the complete Announcement No. TI-08-007

Download RFA in MS Word format
Download RFA in Adobe PDF format

You must respond to the requirements in the RFA in preparing your application.

PHS 5161-1 (revised July 2000): Includes the face page, budget forms and checklist. Applications that are not submitted on the required application form will be screened out and will not be reviewed.