Washington, D.C — The CEO Alliance for Mental Health – a coalition of CEOs from the nation’s leading organizations dedicated to improving the lives of people living with mental health and substance use conditions — released the following statement regarding reported plans to significantly reduce the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA):

The CEO Alliance for Mental Health is deeply concerned about potential cuts to SAMHSA that would interrupt services for people with mental health conditions and substance use disorders – cuts that have the potential to cause widespread harm to our communities. We strongly urge the Administration to protect SAMHSA and other federal programs that address the mental illness and substance use epidemic, and that help to prevent suicide — crises deeply affecting American families.

We are grateful for the strong bipartisan approach in recent years to address our nation’s ongoing mental health, substance use, and suicide crises. We have made great progress. SAMHSA stood up the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – signed into law by President Trump in 2020 — in less than two years. Since 2022, more than 14.5 million people have sought help from this life-saving resource, and SAMHSA has worked closely with the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to address suicide among Veterans through collaboration on the Veterans Crisis Line. In 2023, overdose deaths decreased after several years of record highs, and SAMHSA is largely credited for that decrease in its work in collaboration with states across the country. We simply cannot turn back the clock on this hard-fought progress.

Significant cuts to SAMHSA staff and resources would impact Americans in every corner of the country. Cuts would reduce oversight of the important grant programs that SAMHSA operates that help people with the most severe mental illnesses, hamper efforts to improve 988 awareness and crisis response systems for people, curtail the progress we have made on reducing overdose deaths, and harm SAMHSA’s work in bringing mental health resources to rural communities. We support open debate and the exploration of ways to enhance SAMHSA’s operations. We believe such changes should be carefully pursued through thoughtful, bipartisan collaboration and based on nonpartisan analyses that any changes will improve outcomes for people with mental health and substance use conditions.

The CEO Alliance urges the Administration and Congress to protect SAMHSA and continue the successful bipartisan collaboration to address mental health, suicide prevention, and substance use care in our country. Continued focus on improving our behavioral health system will reduce long-term costs by connecting people to care early, improve outcomes for individuals and their families, and save lives. This focus is consistent with the Administration’s stated policy that the federal government should “aggressively combat the critical health challenges facing our citizens, including the rising rates of mental health disorders.” Together we seek to combat critical challenges facing Americans, and the CEO Alliance calls on the Administration and Congress to avoid actions that would disrupt or slow down our progress to improve the nation’s mental health.

• American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Robert Gebbia, CEO
• American Psychiatric Association, Marketa M. Wills, M.D., M.B.A., FAPA, CEO & Medical Director
• American Psychological Association, Arthur C. Evans, Jr., Ph.D., CEO and EVP
• Massachusetts Association for Mental Health, Danna Mauch, Ph.D., President and CEO
• Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, Andy Keller, Ph.D., President and CEO
• Mental Health America, Schroeder Stribling, M.S.W., President and CEO
• National Alliance on Mental Illness, Daniel H. Gillison, Jr., CEO
• National Association for Behavioral Healthcare, Shawn Coughlin, President and CEO
• National Association of Social Workers, Anthony Estreet, Ph.D., M.B.A., LCSW, CEO
• National Council for Mental Wellbeing, Charles Ingoglia, M.S.W., President and CEO
• One Mind, Kathy Pike, CEO
• Peg’s Foundation, Rick Kellar, M.B.A., President and CEO
• Steinberg Institute, Karen Larsen, CEO
• The Kennedy Forum, Rebecca O. Bagley, President and CEO
• Treatment Advocacy Center, Lisa Dailey, Executive Director

CONTACT: Tyler Norris, Co-Founder & Director, CEO Alliance for Mental Health.

American Psychiatric Association

The American Psychiatric Association, founded in 1844, is the oldest medical association in the country. The APA is also the largest psychiatric association in the world with more than 39,200 physician members specializing in the diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and research of mental illnesses. APA’s vision is to ensure access to quality psychiatric diagnosis and treatment. For more information, please visit www.psychiatry.org.