Community Resilience and Recovery Ininiative: Final Evaluation Report (Color)

In the fall of 2010, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) launched the Community Resilience and Recovery Initiative (CRRI). CRRI was a multi-level, place-based demonstration project aimed at helping grantee communities cope with the ongoing behavioral health effects of the Great Recession. SAMHSA funded three grants based on applications submitted in response to its Request for Applications (RFA): Union City, New Jersey; Fall River, Massachusetts; and Lorain, Ohio. Each applicant was awarded $1.4 million a year for 2 years to improve the coordination and availability of behavioral health services in their respective communities. The RFA anticipated that funding would be available for up to 4 years, but ultimately only 2 years of funds were available. Grantees then operated for up to 1 year more on carryover monies. Required activities included social marketing efforts, community-wide screenings, provision of brief interventions (such as motivational interviewing), and referrals to more intensive services, as needed. The initiatives also required grantees to work in collaboration with various social service agencies in their communities, including employment and job training agencies, mental health service providers, and agencies and organizations that provide services to combat substance use disorders. To assess the implementation and potential success of these grants, the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded Westat a contract to evaluate the initiative throughout the program's duration. The objectives of the evaluation were threefold: First, to describe the characteristics of grantee implementation processes. In order to achieve this objective, Westat conducted two-person site visits to each grantee community in the fall of 2011, 2012, and 2013. In each site the evaluation team conducted in-depth interviews with key project staff, staff from partner agencies, and service recipients. An important finding from the site visits was that each grantee made significant adjustments to the original program design in order to meet their community's unique needs. In Union City, for example, the emphasis of the program was on providing in-school substance use services to ensure that young people caught using drugs or alcohol would receive appropriate treatment and be able to complete their high school education on time. In Lorain, the director of the employment program paid particular attention to the city's African American community, which had been hit by the Great Recession, but also had been disproportionately affected by previous economic downturns. Finally, Fall River used a case management approach to meet its clients' economic and behavioral health needs. This service delivery model allowed clients to establish 6-month relationships with their case managers, which resulted in excellent record keeping and strong outcomes. However, the model was much more intensive than that envisioned in the original RFA.