NH mental health workers scramble as federal cuts announced, reversed

Federal officials say they’re reversing mental health funding cuts, just a day and a half after the cuts were first announced, causing confusion and mixed emotions from local recipients who rely on them.The situation revolves around the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the mental health funding arm of the Department of Health and Human Services. Late Tuesday night, the agency announced that approximately 2,000 grants, totaling around $2 billion, were being cut.In correspondence with recipients, the reasons for the cuts alluded to the fact that the funded programs no longer aligned with the agency’s priorities.For Susan Stearns, executive director of the New Hampshire chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, that language provided little clarity.”It said they didn’t align with the priorities, but I don’t think anyone could find where it tells us what priorities these programs didn’t align with,” she said.NAMI has received multiple grants from SAMHSA to fund local programs in New Hampshire before.The termination notice affected $347,000 in funding. Stearns says much of that was for crisis intervention for first responders, called the Mental Health Awareness Training grant, scheduled for five years.That funding was paired with collaborations with Cheshire County to assist families with young children, and subcontracts with Concord schools to help bring in community partners for its students.With so many who rely on NAMI’s unique services, Stearns was left scrambling to work with the national organization to find solutions for its services and statewide volunteers. That all happened before they suddenly had to scrap all their work Thursday morning. “I’m angry, frankly, because it took a toll on people, some of whom are very vulnerable because they’re hearing about it,” she said.It wasn’t just that the Concord School District was affected. The Manchester School District says it’s had to navigate sudden changes to grant funding over the past year on a consistent basis.”We’ve learned to pivot quickly,” said Superintendent Jennifer Chmiel. “We have plans, we have backup plans, and we have backups to our backups at this point.”The district got its notice early in the morning Wednesday. That funding was set to directly impact student mental health resources, including Project Aware, which promotes behavioral health supports, reporting school violence, and community partnerships.The district said it was awarded $7.6 million in 2023 for a five-year period, currently in the middle of year three. This prompted immediate discussions to plan for potential cuts. Financially, that included $1.2 million for the current cycle and $1.8 million for each of the next two years. >> Download the free WMUR app to get updates on the go << Stacy Champey, the executive director for Safe and Supportive Schools with the district, pointed to the potential for losing several positions, stopping staff training, and halting those programs in high schools.”We’ve had over a thousand middle and high school students refer themselves for behavioral health support to school-based services, which includes the clinicians,” she notes. “They must have parent consent to access those, too.”Those mental health efforts, also in partnership with the Laconia and Concord school districts and the Department of Education, led to a day and a half of frustration.”When you look at shifts happening backwards, taking grant funds away from community partners, it impacts us, but it impacts community resources that families and students might be also trying to resource,” Chmiel said. “So you really are crippling the ability for people to get the help they need when they need it.”The people who need those resources include Hilarie Brown, a mother from Keene, and her son, Eli.Eli was diagnosed with autism later in life. Since the family moved to New Hampshire seven years ago, they’ve used Monadnock Family Services to provide him with mental health services.”These are services and supports that I’ve used in the past that have helped me and my son, or services that we currently use,” she said.Brown says the Connected Families program, a free service provided through Medicaid, is instrumental in helping Eli transition to middle school by improving communication between him and others.When Brown found out about the cuts, she immediately became worried about what would happen to those resources.”When you start taking these support services away, you take away the ability for these kids to have their voice, to feel that they can advocate for themselves,” she said.Brown said despite the reversal, she’s not confident the funds will still hold in the long-term.”These are things that are needed for him, for us, to be able to be the best versions of ourselves,” Brown said. news 9 asked DHHS if they planned to further explain the cuts to recipients, and is waiting to hear back.NAMI said mental health resources are still active and available. If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, you’re encouraged to reach out to them at 1-800-242-6264 or the suicide and crisis lifeline at 988.