[Federal Register Volume 59, Number 85 (Wednesday, May 4, 1994)]
[Unknown Section]
[Page 0]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 94-10607]


[[Page Unknown]]

[Federal Register: May 4, 1994]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration

 

Minority Fellowship Program

AGENCY: Center for Mental Health Services, Substance Abuse and Mental 
Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), HHS.

ACTION: Notice of intent to award a competing renewal clinical training 
grant for the Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) to the American 
Psychological Association.

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SUMMARY: The Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) is publishing 
this notice to provide information to the public of its intent to award 
a competing renewal MFP grant award to the American Psychological 
Association for the clinical training of psychology students who are 
ethnic minorities for entry into service careers in mental and 
addictive health areas. The project period for the competing renewal 
grant is anticipated to be three years. The first year's award will be 
approximately $266,000. This is not a general request for applications. 
The competitive renewal clinical training grant will only be made to 
the American Psychological Association.

AUTHORITY: The award will be made under the authority of section 303 of 
the Public Health Service (PHS) Act. The authority to administer this 
program has been delegated to the Director, CMHS. The Catalog of 
Federal Domestic Assistance number for this program is 93.244.

BACKGROUND: CMHS has the responsibility for mental health workforce 
development, including the clinical training of mental health 
professionals concerned with the treatment of underserved priority 
populations: Seriously mentally ill adults; seriously emotionally 
disturbed children; and elderly, ethnic minorities and rural 
populations with mental disorders; and individuals with co-occurring 
mental and addictive disorders. CMHS also has responsibility for 
training ethnic minorities to become mental health professionals, which 
is a very significant task in light of the gap between the growing 
ethnic minority populations requiring mental health services 
(approaching 25% of the total population) and the much smaller number 
of ethnic minority mental health professionals (less than 10% of the 
total).
    Over the past several decades, the Federal mental health clinical 
training program at NIMH (and currently at CMHS) has addressed this gap 
primarily by attempting to increase the numbers of ethnic minority 
professionals. Ethnic minority professionals understand the customs and 
language of their own particular ethnic group and, therefore, are more 
likely to render high-quality mental health services to mentally ill 
minorities.
    The CMHS MFP is designed to facilitate the entry of minority 
students into mental health careers. The long-term goal is to increase 
the number of professionals trained at the doctoral level to teach and 
provide mental health services, especially to ethnic minority groups.
    The MFP was started at NIMH in the 1970s. This program for clinical 
training provides grants to each of the four core mental health 
professional organizations: The American Nurses Association, the 
American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric 
Association, and the Council on Social Work Education. These 4 MFP 
grantees, in turn, conduct national competitions to make individual 
graduate fellowship awards to minority students throughout the country. 
Each of the four professional organizations has unique access to those 
students entering its profession. Each of the four has recruited the 
best students, assured that all program requirements were satisfied, 
and monitored the progress of fellows during and after the fellowship 
period. In short, there has been no reason to change the program 
structure or the grantees administering the four-discipline program; 
thus, the mechanism of peer-reviewed competing renewal clinical 
training grant has been appropriate.
    Therefore, because the American Psychological Association's MFP 
grant support will end in FY 1994, the CMHS is providing additional 
support for up to three years via a competing renewal grant award. The 
American Nurses Association, the American Psychiatric Association and 
the Council on Social Work Education have ongoing CMHS MFP grant 
support.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION: Questions concerning the CMHS MFP may be 
directed to Dr. Lemuel Clark, Chief, Human Resources Planning and 
Development Branch, CMHS, room 15C-18, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 
20857, telephone (301) 443-5850.

    Dated: April 28, 1994.
Richard Kopanda,
Acting Executive Officer, SAMHSA.
[FR Doc. 94-10607 Filed 5-3-94; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4162-20-P