Elevate Community Based Organizations (ECBOs)
Elevate Community-based organizations (CBOs) is an overarching policy-driven initiative at SAMHSA's Office of Behavioral Health Equity to build capacity, increase the visibility, and highlight the unique role of CBOs serving under-resourced communities in behavioral health. This initiative engages four strategies—Education, Partnership, Technical Assistance and Equity Dialogue.
CBOs play an important role when serving their respective communities. CBOs work at the local level to maintain community morale and cohesion, build connection between officials at various levels of government with community and provide critical services to the community. They are often called a service hub because of their wide-spread services.
CBO often lack the consistent funding sources to allow them to sustain their services. The challenge of acquiring sustainable resource is not uncommon for CBOs due to the lack of infrastructure and capacity. Elevate CBOs initiative was established in January 2021 to enhance CBOs’ capacity to serve the underserved communities effectively and efficiently.
Key goals
Education
Education
Increase knowledge on the topics that enhance organizations capacity and sustainability. Examples of topics discussed: Grants and proposal development, budget preparation, using data effectively and emerging behavioral health practices.
Partnerships
Partnerships
Effective partnership enhances efficiency and impact of behavioral health services. Elevate CBOs initiative fosters partnership between CBOs with different entities. Examples of these entities include SAMHSA regional administrators, agencies among HHS, state and local governments.
Equity Dialogue
Equity Dialogue
Equity Dialogue establishes a platform where CBOs representatives meet and discuss opportunities and challenges with SAMHSA leadership. The dialogue among the leaders inform and influence system change.
Technical Assistance
Technical Assistance
Elevate CBOs initiative offers one-on-one in technical advice sessions to CBOs which requested assistance. OBHE uses a case study approach to understand the request from CBOs, research information and offer advice and potential solutions to assist CBOs to overcome their challenge.
Elevate CBO Webinars
- SAMHSA Data and Publicly Available Analysis Tools
Thursday, December 8, 2022 | 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm ET - Community Needs Assessments
Wednesday, August 10, 2022 | 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm ET - Data 101 Workshop
Thursday, May 26, 2022 | 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm ET - Budget 101 Workshop
Tuesday, September 14, 2021 | 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm ET