Project Grant H79SM091521

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration awarded $1.05 million to the Keetoowah Economic Development Authority on September 30, 2026, under the Center for Mental Health Services Projects of Regional and National Significance program (CFDA 93.532) for the Keetoowah Healing Circle Children's System of Care Initiative.

The award funds a three-year planning and infrastructure-development project to establish a sustainable, family-driven, youth-guided, community-based, and culturally grounded children's system of care for the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma. The project will develop governance, partnership, data, outreach, screening, referral, and sustainability infrastructure to connect tribal child-serving programs, schools, child welfare, childcare and early-learning providers, families, and behavioral health services. Capacity development addresses significant rural access barriers, behavioral-health workforce shortages, limited transportation and broadband connectivity, poverty and food insecurity, and the absence of shared tribal governance, coordinated screening and referral pathways, formal cross-system partnerships, and a written system-of-care blueprint.

The population of focus is Keetoowah and other American Indian and Alaska Native children, youth, and young adults from birth through age 25, along with their families and caregivers, residing in the five-county service area covering Cherokee, Adair, Delaware, Mayes, and Sequoyah counties in northeastern Oklahoma. The project will prioritize infants and young children in tribal childcare and early-learning programs, school-age children and adolescents, transition-age youth, children involved with child welfare, and youth experiencing or at risk for emotional, behavioral, substance-use, trauma-related, or suicide-related concerns.

Performance occurs in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, through September 29, 2029. Although the planning grant does not fund direct clinical treatment, outreach, screening, referral, and community-engagement activities will be available.