- Administration for Children and Families (ACF) funding goes to faith-based organizations through Head Start, programs for refugee resettlement, runaway and homeless youth, independent living, child care, child support enforcement, and child welfare.
- ACF's Office of Child Support Enforcement has produced a video on the benefits of child support and faith-based partnerships. The video suggests ways to strengthen the role of faith-based organizations in child support collection and in the involvement of both parents in their children's lives.
- Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has established the Faith Partnership Initiative designed to foster and build partnerships between the agency's federally-funded community health centers and faith-based organizations in order to increase access to quality primary and preventive health care, to reduce health disparities, and to better coordinate health assets at the local level. HRSA also provides funds to faith-based and community organizations to support services through the "Healthy Tomorrows" program, the Healthy Start program, and an initiative to test the use of church health advocates to promote organ donation.
- HRSA has been funding the National Hispanic Religious Partnership for Community Health since fiscal year 1998. This network of Hispanic churches has created a national databank of Hispanic faith-based and community organizations that will in the future identify services, programs and resources available to address health-related needs in the Hispanic community.
- The Office of Public Health and Science's (OPHS) Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs provides grants to support health, education and social services for pregnant and parenting adolescents at the community level. The office also provides grants to support abstinence education programs aimed at young adolescents who are not sexually active. The abstinence programs are designed to delay the onset of sexual activity and to reduce the incidence of teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS. The office has 19 grants with faith-based organizations.
- In July 2001, OPHS announced the availability of funds for one or two large cooperative agreements ($500,000-$700,000) to manage and support two-year pilots of the Healthy People 2010 implementation activities by community-based organizations. The goal is to provide very small amounts of money (micro finance) to a wide variety of local, community and faith-based organizations and others to assist them in conducting one or more activities related to Healthy People 2010 and the Leading Health Indicators.
- In 2000, The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration (SAMHSA) became the first HHS agency to undertake a specific faith-based initiative led by a full-time, dedicated staff coordinator. The initiative formalizes the long-term, ongoing role of both spirituality and faith-based organizations in SAMHSA's discretionary and block grant substance abuse and mental health programs. SAMHSA's Community Substance Abuse Prevention Partnership Program has involved more than 800 faith and community partners.
- SAMHSA's Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) program makes grants to states to provide services to people with serious mental illness who are homeless or are at risk for homelessness. States allocate the dollars to local agencies, many of which are faith-based. Believing that partnerships with faith-based organizations are critical to the program's success, SAMHSA encourages local-funded agencies to coordinate their services with faith-based organizations serving homeless people with mental illness.
We know that faith-based and community groups participate in many areas of service delivery on a small scale in comparison to the total amount of federal dollars going to and distributed by states and localities. The Center for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives will be working across the Department to expand such opportunities. We are also working to provide clarification to state and local entities regarding the implementation of Charitable Choice. A number of HHS agencies and programs provide funding and technical assistance to faith-based and community organizations. Following are just a few examples of HHS-funded activities: