Substance Abuse and Suicide Prevention Funding

The Wyoming Department of Health is changing the way substance abuse and suicide prevention funding is managed and distributed across the state in an effort to save money and encourage effective prevention strategies. Department representatives notified community prevention organizations in March of plans to move to a single fiscal agent model on July 1. The change involves one prevention management organization charged with hiring local staff and distributing funding across the state. The Community Resource Center of Johnson County will fill this role. Tom Forslund, Wyoming Department of Health director, said the department is fully committed to this approach, as well as to working with community coalition partners. Forslund said discussions began on integrating prevention efforts some years ago. “However, the actual implementation has seemed to surprise a number of our valued community coalition partners,” he said. “It has become clear we should have done a better job with our communication efforts about this process. For that, we apologize.”