The Mississippi Department of Mental Health’s annual block grant application is on its website and was open for public comment through September 14, 2021. You can access the PDF of the draft block grant application here. (Note that it’s a large 3.3 MB file.)
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), all fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and six Pacific jurisdictions receive Community Mental Health Services Block Grant (MHBG) funds to provide community mental health services. In Mississippi, these funds come to the Department of Mental Health. These funds are meant to help adults with serious mental illnesses and children with serious emotional disturbances.
SAMHSA expects block grant recipients to ask people what is needed in the state and then submit a plan based on that feedback about how the state will use the funds. That is what this plan is – Mississippi’s plans for how it will use these funds. The state can distribute the funds to community mental health centers and other groups to carry out the plans.
Federal law requires that the state’s Mental Health Planning Council, a group made up of adults with serious mental illness, families of children with serious emotional disturbances and other people interested in the welfare of people affected by mental illness, find out each year what the state’s greatest mental health needs are and then direct the state in making sure the plan meets those needs.
