[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] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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