The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Center for Substance Abuse and Prevention (CSAP) awarded McFarland & Associates a 5-year contract in the year 2004 to work with faith- and community-based organizations (FBOs/CBOs) across the country. The contract was primarily in substance abuse prevention, HIV/AIDS prevention, strategy development, and funding opportunities.

Rev. Delavago Scruggs served as the Senior Project Director for this contract. The contract evolved and increased with additional funding and other contract deliverables. In 2005, McFarland & Associates, through the CSAP funding, made 32 subcontract awards to 32 FBOs/CBOs from across the country in the amount of $25,000 each. In October 2006, we increased this pool from 32 grantees to 68 grantees. McFarland & Associates designed and facilitated the annual CSAP Faith Symposium, which took place in Washington DC at the Washington Convention Center. The 10th Annual Faith Symposium was held in conjunction with the Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America’s (CADCA's) 16th Annual National Leadership Forum. At the Faith Symposium, faith and community leaders were exposed to technical assistance and to a national network of healthcare professionals, peers, and political leaders.

The Technical Assistance Areas covered were:

• How FBOs can be involved in substance abuse and HIV prevention coalitions.
• How FBOs/CBOs can improve on data collection, analysis and reporting techniques.
• Training and technical assistance.
• How collaborative efforts can improve upon the historical efforts of the faith community to provide a wide range of services to their communities.
• How to address the importance of the faith community’s understanding of health promotion and disease prevention.

The Goals of this National Initiative were:

• To offer a range of training and information that were relevant and useful to coalition practioners and members of the faith community at all levels of expertise and experience.
• To facilitate networking and community building among a wide variety of practitioners and others interested in preventing substance abuse and HIV/AIDS.
• To highlight and bring visibility to the faith- and community-based prevention field through model programs.
• To offer the faith community input into CSAP’s gathering of relevant data and information from the field.
• To increase CSAP’s database of active faith- and community-based prevention organizations for future funding opportunities.

If you would like more information regarding this contract please contact us at:

Phone: (301) 589-0780
Fax: (301) 589-2567
Email: info@mcfarlandassociate.com