Health Advocacy Webinar Summary and Information

by Emilia Dunham

Program Associate

On January 31st, 2011, The Network held a BrownBag Webinar with Trevor Project’s Dave Reynolds, Hunter College’s Barbara Warren and CenterLink’s Terry Stone. This webinar discusses what Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is doing to enhance their states suicide prevention programs to be LGB and T inclusive, but your help is needed to support that work.  SAMHSA distributes the largest block of suicide prevention funds in the country and requires State Departments of Healths to apply for these funds. The change is that now SAMHSA adopted the new strategies and significantly enhanced the LGBT language in the scored section for several suicide prevention RFAs,  so states will need you to know what to say to get these awards!

The webinar went over the following items (links at end have more info):

• Overview of this Advocacy Opportunity – Dr. Scout, Network for LGBT Health Equity
• Linking with the Right State/Tribal Rep – Dr. Scout
• LGBT Youth Suicide Prevention Strategies – Dr. Barbara Warren, Hunter College Ctr or LGBT Soc. Sci. & Public Policy & Dave Reynolds, Trevor Project
• Real World Examples–Dave Reynolds
• Comments from CenterLink & Equality Federation staff

Request for Funding (RFA) Overview:

• Title: SAMHSA Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) RFA Cooperative Agreements for State-Sponsored Youth Suicide Prevention and Early Intervention (Short Title: State and Tribal Youth Suicide Prevention)
• Purpose: suicide prevention
• Nickname: Garret Lee Smith awards
• Due Feb. 16th, 2011
• 32 states/tribes can apply to get awards for up to $480k/yr (no cost sharing between orgs required)
• Length: up to 3 years
• States/tribes can designate contractors to do the work for them.
• LGBT inclusion plans are requested in two categories that total 55% of all the points you can earn on the proposal.
• See full RFA at grants.gov, look up RFA # SM-11-001

Steps:

• Find the SAMHSA rep for your state/tribe: see all reps in this listing.
• Call them, see if they’re preparing a Garrett Lee Smith proposal.
• If no, tough luck.
• If yes, find out who’s in charge of preparing it. Contact them.

Tips

• Be armed with some LGBT suicide facts to help make your case compelling
• Present yourself as offering help to the preparer, you are their LGBT inclusion solution, right? So be bold and confident!
• Don’t necessarily do this work for free. You are providing a service and should be compensated.

Resources from the call (Click links):

Slideshow of the webinar with pertinent information.

Health Advocacy Webinar Recording.

Contact information from those on calls (excludes phone numbers)