PPHF 2015 Cooperative Agreements for State Sponsored Youth Suicide Prevention and Early Intervention (PPHF 2015) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The FY 2015 PPHF 2015 Cooperative Agreements for State Sponsored Youth Suicide Prevention and Early Intervention is a discretionary federal funding opportunity administered by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Mental Health Services. It offers cooperative agreements to help states and tribal entities build, strengthen, and carry out statewide or tribal strategies focused on youth suicide prevention and early intervention. The program is designed to move beyond isolated programs by pushing applicants to organize coordinated systems that can identify youth at risk earlier, respond more effectively, and ultimately reduce both suicide deaths and non-fatal suicide attempts among young people.

A central expectation of the opportunity is broad, cross-system collaboration among organizations that regularly interact with youth. The announcement highlights the need to involve schools and other educational institutions, juvenile justice, foster care and child welfare systems, substance use and mental health programs, and additional child- and youth-serving organizations. Rather than treating suicide prevention as only a school issue or only a clinical issue, SAMHSA emphasizes that funded strategies should include both a strong community component and a strong health system component. In practice, this means building linkages so that prevention messaging, risk identification, referral pathways, crisis response, and follow-up care are aligned across settings where youth spend time and where they seek help.

The opportunity is framed within SAMHSA's broader view that behavioral health is a core part of overall health: prevention can reduce harm before it escalates, treatment works when it is accessible and timely, and recovery is achievable for people experiencing mental and substance use disorders. The grant aligns closely with SAMHSA's Strategic Initiative focused on the Prevention of Substance Abuse and Mental Illness, reinforcing that suicide prevention efforts should be integrated with broader behavioral health prevention and early intervention work, including attention to co-occurring substance use risks that can heighten suicide vulnerability.

Equity is also built into the program's intent. The announcement specifically calls for addressing behavioral health disparities affecting racial and ethnic minority populations by encouraging strategies that reduce gaps in access to services, service utilization, and outcomes. Applicants are expected to be deliberate about how their statewide or tribal approach reaches populations that historically face barriers to culturally appropriate care, timely intervention, and consistent follow-up, and to implement approaches that measurably narrow those differences over the life of the project.

Because this is categorized as a SAMHSA services grant program, the expectation is that the work will translate quickly into real-world service delivery rather than staying in a long planning phase. SAMHSA states that services should begin as soon as possible after award and no later than the fourth month of the project period, signaling that applicants should be prepared to deploy interventions, partnerships, and referral mechanisms rapidly once funding begins. The program is authorized under Section 520E of the Public Health Service Act (as amended) and is financed entirely through the 2015 Prevention and Public Health Funds (PPHF). It also explicitly ties to Healthy People 2020, within the Mental Health and Mental Disorders topic area, placing youth suicide prevention within a national public health improvement framework.

In terms of scale and basic funding parameters, SAMHSA anticipated making about 12 awards under this announcement, with an estimated total funding amount of $8,644,636. The award ceiling was listed as $736,000, with no stated award floor, and there was no cost sharing or matching requirement. The funding opportunity number is SM-15-004, and it is associated with CFDA 93.243 (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Projects of Regional and National Significance). The posting date was April 2, 2015, with an application closing date of June 2, 2015, and the opportunity was later archived on July 2, 2015.

Eligibility is tailored to entities that can legitimately lead statewide or tribal strategies. Eligible applicants include states (including the District of Columbia and U.S. territories) and federally recognized Indian tribes, tribal organizations, and urban Indian organizations, including Alaska Villages, as long as they are actively involved in developing and continuing a tribal youth suicide early intervention and prevention strategy. The announcement also allows public or private nonprofit organizations to apply when they are designated by a state or eligible tribal entity to develop or direct the state- or tribal-sponsored strategy, which creates a pathway for states or tribes to name an appropriate nonprofit lead organization with the capacity to coordinate multi-system work.

SAMHSA does not mandate a single type of state agency to serve as the lead because states vary in how suicide prevention is organized. For example, the lead might sit in a Department of Health, Department of Mental Health, or another appropriate state entity depending on the state's existing prevention infrastructure. If a state plan already designates a lead agency for suicide prevention, that agency is expected to serve as the lead or to designate an alternative lead for the grant. If the state plan does not identify a lead, the application must justify why the chosen lead agency is the right fit. Even though the program expects one identified lead organization, the inclusion and active participation of all relevant youth-serving agencies is described as an expectation, reflecting the program's core emphasis on coordinated statewide or tribal systems rather than fragmented efforts.

Overall, the opportunity is aimed at helping states and tribes put in place comprehensive, connected youth suicide prevention and early intervention strategies that are implemented quickly, grounded in cross-sector partnerships, attentive to disparities, and oriented toward measurable reductions in suicide deaths and attempts. For administrative questions or difficulty accessing the full announcement, the listed contact was Gwendolyn Simpson in SAMHSA's Office of Financial Resources, Division of Grants Management (Rockville, Maryland), reachable by phone at (240) 276-1408 or by email at gwendolyn.simpson@samhsa.hhs.gov.

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