Drug Free Communities Mentoring Program

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The Executive Office of the President, Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) announce the availability of funds for new FY 2009 Drug Free Communities Mentoring Program (DFC Mentoring) grants. The purpose of the DFC Mentoring Program is to provide grant funds to existing DFC grantees so that they may serve as Mentors to newly-formed and/or developing coalitions that have never received a DFC grant. Mentor grant funds should be used for the direct benefit of the Mentee Community/Coalition. Through the support of DFC mentoring funds, Mentor Coalitions are expected to share their expertise with non-grantee coalitions (Mentee Community/Coalition) and enable them to successfully compete for a DFC grant. Funding through this grant should support access for the Mentee Community/Coalition to the training and technical assistance necessary to help them form a community coalition and pursue a DFC grant. It is the intent of the DFC Mentoring Program that communities mentored through this effort will form functioning coalitions working to reduce youth drug use at the community level, and that those coalitions should meet the basic eligibility criteria of the DFC program and be able to address the two primary goals of DFC listed below. DFC Mentoring grants are designed to support the overall goals of the Drug Free Communities Program, a collaborative initiative led by ONDCP in partnership with SAMHSA. The DFC Program has two primary goals: * Establish and strengthen collaboration among communities, private nonprofit agencies, and Federal, State, local and tribal governments to support the efforts of community coalitions to prevent and reduce substance abuse among youth. * Reduce substance abuse among youth and, over time, among adults by addressing the factors in a community that increase the risk of substance abuse and promoting the factors that minimize the risk of substance abuse. (Substances include, but are not limited to, narcotics, depressants, stimulants, hallucinogens, marijuana, inhalants, alcohol and tobacco, where their use is prohibited by Federal, State, or local law.) Note: DFC-funded coalitions must focus on multiple drugs of abuse. When the term “drug” or “substance” is used in this funding announcement, it is intended to include all of the above drugs. The Drug Free Communities Program (DFC) was created by the Drug Free Communities Act, 1997 (Public Law 105-20). DFC Mentoring grants were established as a component of the DFC Program when the DFC Program was reauthorized on December 14, 2001, through P.L. 107-82, 115 Stat. 814 (2001). Congress again demonstrated its support for the DFC Mentoring effort when the DFC Program and the DFC Mentoring Program were reauthorized in December of 2006 (Public Law 109-469). This program addresses Healthy People 2010 focus area 26 (Substance Abuse). The coalitions that have been awarded DFC Mentoring grants represent a cross-section of communities from every region in the nation. In FY 2008, ONDCP awarded 14 new DFC Mentoring Grants and 17 Mentoring Continuation grants. More information about DFC and DFC Mentoring grants can be found on the DFC Web site (http://www.ondcp.gov/dfc/).

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