Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration

Community and Faith-based Initiatives
Evidence-Based Practices
Statistics

Community and Faith-based Initiatives

The work of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), serves as a model of how effective partnerships can be forged between Federal programs and faith- based and community organizations to benefit people with or at risk for mental and substance abuse disorders. Historically, religion has played an important role in public health in many communities, and faith-based social programs have demonstrated their efficacy.

• Department of Health and Human Services and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Faith-based and Community Initiative
• White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives
• Links on Faith and Spirituality

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Evidence-Based Practices

New knowledge is a product not only of scientific research, but also of the experiences of providers in States, localities, and the private sector, as well as of professional and academic organizations, and consumers and their families. SAMHSA considers the research process incomplete until its successful innovations become evidence-based practices. For this reason, SAMHSA and its Centers continue to seek to enhance the application of knowledge from all sources.

• Addressing the Needs of Youth with Disabilities in the Juvenile Justice System: The Status of Evidence-Based Research
  This report from the National Council on Disability evaluates the emerging status of key policies and programs that affect children and youth with disabilities who have often been overlooked by service and research programs.
• Report to Congress on the Prevention and Treatment of Co-Occurring Substance Abuse Disorders and Mental Disorders: Evidence-Based Practices for Treating Individuals with Co-Occurring Disorders
  This portion of a 2002 report to the U.S. Congress by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration discusses evidence-based practices in regard to the treatment of co-occurring disorders.
• Knowledge Assessment and Application: Evidence-based Practice
  This resource from the Evaluation Center at the Human Services Research Institute provides a general description of evidence-based practices (EBPs), a list of concerns about EBPs, and information about getting to EBPs.

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Statistics

The Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) provides guidance and technical assistance to decision makers at all levels of government on the design, structure, content, and use of mental health information systems, with the ultimate goal of improving the quality of mental health programs and services delivery. CMHS operates the only program in the Nation that focuses on the development of data standards that provide the basis for uniform, comparable, high-quality statistics on mental health services, making it a model in the health care statistics field.

• Publications on Mental Health Statistics

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