Tell Maine DHHS to Release Peer Service Dollars Now!
- The Consumer Council System of Maine
- Closed on
- Target:
- Maine Department of Health & Human Services and Office of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
- Region:
- United States of America
- Website:
- www.maineccsm.org
The CCSM wants to thank everyone who signed on and supported this campaign.
The letter and all signatures were printed off and sent to Commissioner Mary Mayhew's office at the Maine Department of Health & Human Services.
As a result, part of the funds were released in an Request For Proposal for Peer Recovery Training.
This petition is now closed.
In June of 2015, DHHS’s office of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services (SAMHS) put out four RFP’s (Request for Proposal). RFP’s are a request for a bid for goods or services to be provided on behalf of the state.
This money is from federal block grant funds that have traditionally been used to fund programs for people without MaineCare. The goal of the Grant Oversight Committee, the Quality Improvement Council(QIC) and SAMHS was that they would set aside 25% of these funds to use as new funds for peer services.
The RFP’s were to establish the following 4 initiatives:
• A youth network
• A family network
• Two adult mental health programs:
Recovery Based Training and Technical Support for a max of $155,000, and
3 Innovative Projects with awards up to a total of $150,000.
Various organizations submitted proposals for these programs. In August/ September, SAMHS announced that they were not awarding any of the adult peer service dollars except for the Family Network Initiative.
Recently, the Consumer Council System of Maine (CCSM) as well as others have asked DHHS to give us a formal answer about what happened with the RFP process and when these peer service program funds will be released. The CCSM received a letter from SAMHS in response to our request that was vague and said they were still reviewing the process and determining what the next steps will be.
In the meantime, the block grant funds sit unused! We have heard from many members of the peer community regarding their frustration that there has been no clear response on getting these funds released.
Help us send a loud and clear message to DHHS about how important these peer service dollars are to our community and that they need to be released NOW!
You can help the peer community by signing the attached letter, online petition ( or writing your own letter about why this is matter is important to you! Please send completed letters directly to the Consumer Council System of Maine: 55 Middle St Suite 2 Augusta, ME 04330 and we will forward the letters in one package to DHHS.
We, the undersigned, call on Maine DHHS to release Block Grant Peer Services Funds as it is the right thing to do!
We want to express how important peer services and the resulting funding matter to us! These funds are a priority in the peer community.
We also want to let DHHS know that their lack of concrete responses or plans for releasing the block grant monies is NOT OK!
The Tell Maine DHHS to Release Peer Service Dollars Now! petition to Maine Department of Health & Human Services and Office of Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services was written by The Consumer Council System of Maine and is in the category Health at GoPetition.