Programs and Initiatives
The Mental Health program promotes, provides, and manages a comprehensive system of mental health services, which offers AI/AN people a full range of culturally sensitive clinical and community mental health services.
- The Behavioral Health Integration Initiative (BH2I) aims to plan, develop, implement, and evaluate behavioral health integration with primary care, community based settings, and/or integrating primary care, nutrition, diabetes care, and chronic disease management with behavioral health.
- Trauma Informed care involves two initatives, the Pediatric Integrated Care Collaborative (PICC), and the Trauma Informed Care Education Project.
Suicide Prevention and Care Program
The Suicide Prevention and Care Program builds on the foundation of HHS's "National Strategy for Suicide Prevention" to reduce suicidal behavior and its consequences, while ensuring honor and respect for Tribal traditions and practices.
Zero Suicide Initiative
The IHS Zero Suicide Initiative has seven core goals to prevent suicide in patients within health and behavioral health care.
Alcohol and Substance Abuse Prevention
Alcohol and Substance Abuse Program (ASAP)
The Alcohol and Substance Abuse Program (ASAP) aims to lower the incidence and prevalence of alcohol abuse and alcoholism among American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) people, to a level at or below the general U.S. population, through a network of community-based emergency, inpatient, and outpatient treatment and rehabilitation services, in rural and urban settings.
Substance Abuse and Suicide Prevention (SASP) Program
The Substance Abuse and Suicide Prevention (SASP) , fomerly known as the Methamphetamine and Suicide Prevention Initiative (MSPI), promotes the use and development of evidence-based and practice-based models that represent culturally-appropriate prevention and treatment approaches to methamphetamine abuse, other substance use, and suicide prevention from a community-driven context.
Youth Regional Treatment Centers (YRTC)
The mission of the Youth Regional Treatment Centers (YRTC) is to provide quality, holistic behavioral health care for AI/AN adolescents and their families in a substance-free, residential environment that integrates healing, spiritual values, and cultural identification.
Family Violence Prevention
Community Health Aide Program (CHAP)
The Community Health Aide Program (CHAP) is a multidisciplinary system of mid-level behavioral, community, and dental health professionals working alongside licensed providers to offer patients increased access to quality care in rural Alaskan areas.
IHS works to ensure that Native Youth have access to health services in the communities where they live. IHS carries out this work by providing enhanced resources for health issues and developing better information regarding health needs.
Domestic Violence Prevention (DVP) Program
DVPI, now known as the Domestic Violence Prevention (DVP) program, promotes the development of evidence- and practice-based models that represent culturally appropriate prevention and treatment approaches to domestic violence and sexual assault from a community-driven context. The DVPI expands outreach and increases awareness by funding programs that provide outreach, victim advocacy, intervention, policy development, community response teams and community and school education programs.
The Forensic Healthcare program addresses sexual and intimate partner violence, child sexual abuse, and elder maltreatment. By training health care providers to provide medical forensic examinations, collect accurate evidence in a timely manner, and participate in coordinated community response aimed at addressing violence, the program enables more AI/AN people to get needed health care.
Telebehavioral Health Center of Excellence (TBHCE)
The Telebehavioral Health Center of Excellence (TBHCE) provides technical assistance, implementation, training, and evaluation support for remote health care, and serves isolated AI/AN communities and areas with limited or no access to behavioral health services.
Indian Children's Program (ICP)The Indian Children's Program (ICP) provides training and telehealth consultation services for IHS, Tribal, and urban Indian health care providers to deliver health care to American Indian and Alaska Natives through age 18 with disabilities such as Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), autism, intellectual deficits, and mental health disabilities. These services use tele-video and web-based technology and are available nationwide. For more information, please visit the TBHCE website.
The IHS Tele-Education program provides healthcare providers working in IHS, Tribal, and Urban Indian Healthcare Facilities with culturally sensitive education and training related to a variety of behavioral health topics.