Delaware’s Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health secures more than $1 million to re-launch its recovery support scholarship program in July.
DSAMH’s community partners were abruptly told in April the two-year-old program ran out of funding, after distributing $2.6 million to help Delawareans recovering from addiction cover housing, transportation, and legal assistance costs.
The agency initially announced it obtained $100,000 to continue providing housing assistance until it could relaunch the scholarships. Now, DSAMH Director Joanna Champney says it will have more than $1 million for housing scholarships by July; the division has applied for additional funding of a yet-to-be-determined quantity to cover other needs, including groceries and transportation.
The scholarship program is unique: unlike most DSAMH programs, the scholarships were available to respond to the individual needs of people in recovery — repairing a car to ensure a person in recovery can continue to work and attend medical appointments, for instance. In the past, DSAMH was able to cover those costs directly, but Champney says the new funding sources will require her agency to distribute funds through contracts with community partners. To that end, she says, DSAMH will rely on its partners — including organizations like aTtaCK Addiction, which previously referred clients to the scholarship program — to provide individualized financial support.
“The fund has been really flexible to support those types of needs, and we don’t need to have a contract in place to support every type of need," she said. "You can’t have a contract with every vehicle repair shop in the state," but DSAMH's community partners can pay for a client's car repairs and submit an invoice to DSAMH, she added — albeit after vetting the client's request for funding.
Champney also notes that DSAMH will also introduce monthly spending caps when the scholarship program re-launches in July to improve their accounting and better predict when the program's funding will once again run dry.
