AUSTIN, Texas—A new $4.6 million grantmaking initiative to help mental health service providers in Texas bridge short-term funding gaps has been announced by the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health.
The Hogg Foundation’s Special Mental Health Services Initiative seeks proposals from nonprofit mental health organizations (public and private) that provide direct mental health services to children, adults or families. One-year grants of up to $100,000 will be awarded based upon the strength of the applicant’s plans for maintaining, restoring or refocusing direct services to specific target populations of consumers in Texas. Proposals must be postmarked no later than Jan. 31, 2005.
The Hogg Foundation’s special initiative responds to recent state policy changes and funding cuts that have created significant pressures on local public and private nonprofit mental health organizations and services, said King Davis, executive director of the Hogg Foundation.
“State budget reductions to the public mental health system and reductions in Medicaid rates and the loss/reduction of CHIP mental health benefits have constrained the capacity of the state mental health service providers to maintain service levels,” Davis said, “while private nonprofit mental health organizations have been unable to keep pace with the demand for clinical services.”
At the same time, Davis said, public mental health service providers are struggling with the transition to rules set by the 78th Texas Legislature that restricted the public system to treating only three specific diagnoses (bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and clinically severe depression), or when clients are in crisis. This restructuring has raised concerns across the state, Davis said, particularly in areas where significant decreases have occurred in the quantity of clinical services available.
“Our goal with this Special Mental Health Services Initiative is to provide the agencies and organizations with short-term financial support for direct service delivery during this period of declining and uncertain funding,” Davis said.
In addition to the special request for proposals, Davis said the Hogg Foundation is also expanding its existing outreach services to offer specific assistance to nonprofit (public and private) mental health organizations in their efforts to obtain alternative funding or to redesign their local service delivery systems.
For more information or to obtain a copy of the guidelines for submission, visit the Mental Health Services Initiative page of the Hogg Foundation Web site or e-mail a request for materials to SMHSI@hogg.utexas.edu. Applicants may also contact the Foundation at 512-471-5041.
The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health is an administrative unit of The University of Texas at Austin that was established by the children of former Texas Governor James Stephen Hogg. For more than 60 years, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health has managed both operating programs and grantmaking activities in support of mental health services, research, public policy, and education programs in Texas.
For more information contact: Jeff Patterson, 512-471-5041.
