The state of North Dakota, acting through its North Dakota Department of Human Services, Behavioral Health Division (STATE) received funding from SAMSHA’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment to address mental illness treatment and recovery service needs among individuals ages 25 and older in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. North Dakota has distributed its funds among five treatment providers across the state, implementing a variety of direct client services, as well as crisis intervention, referral and outreach.
PIRE’s role as the evaluator is to capture the numerous activities being conducted to promote the availability of services and possible ways in which to sustain efforts after funding ends. In addition, PIRE is involved with entering individual level client data into the SAMSHA SPARS system. We will be generating analyses and reports to help SAMSHA understand successes and challenges in addressing the needs created by the pandemic.