Empower Somerset, Inc.

Empower Somerset, Inc., a Somerville, New Jersey-based tax-exempt nonprofit organization, serves as a federal grant recipient and subrecipient focused on youth substance abuse prevention, behavioral health, and community-based health promotion across New Jersey, with a grant footprint dominated by SAMHSA and HHS regional offices and state pass-through entities.

Empower Somerset operates almost exclusively as a subrecipient (69% of recent awards) rather than as a direct federal prime grantee. The vendor holds three prime federal grants from SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Prevention and one from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, all project-grant awards for community prevention infrastructure in Somerset County and surrounding areas. The Franklin Prevention Connection, awarded by SAMHSA on September 30, 2026, carries $217,500 and runs through September 29, 2031, implementing the Strategic Prevention Framework across Franklin Township to address prevention service gaps, youth mentoring, parent engagement, and evidence-based screening and early intervention for grades 6–12 students. The Somerset Partners for Prevention project, awarded September 30, 2024, runs through September 29, 2029, and targets youth ages 12–17 and adult residents in Bound Brook and North Plainfield, New Jersey, with training in SBIRT (screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment), multimedia prevention campaigns, and annual screenings for more than 5,000 direct service recipients. A third SAMHSA grant supporting the Bound for Healthy Youth Coalition (awarded September 30, 2023, ultimate completion September 29, 2028) addresses prevention and youth substance use reduction in Bound Brook and South Bound Brook through coalition-building and community-wide change strategies.

As a subrecipient, Empower Somerset works primarily through pass-through grants administered by the New Jersey Department of Health and the New Jersey Department of Human Services. The vendor has engaged in 29 sub-awards since 2022, spanning substance abuse prevention funding, adolescent health and sexual risk avoidance education, teen pregnancy prevention program replication, suicide prevention curriculum implementation (Lifelines Trilogy), social and emotional learning (SEL) in K–12 settings using the CDC Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child framework, school violence prevention technology solutions, and special child health services case management. A notable September 30, 2025 sub-award from NJDOH allocated $2 million for implementation of the HELPme trauma-informed app in up to 78 high-need New Jersey school districts, targeting 335,000 additional students and serving a combined potential of up to 496,000 students statewide. Empower Somerset partners with state-procured vendors including STOPit Solutions on this initiative.

Customer concentration sits with HHS agencies. SAMHSA, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Administration for Children and Families together account for 74% of awards by count. The combined obligated dollars across all 42 awards (prime and sub, dating back to 2013) total $17.6 million, with annual award volume growing from one award in 2022 to twelve in 2025 before moderating to six in 2026. Only one award faces ultimate completion in the next twenty-four months, indicating minimal recompete pressure. The vendor's federal grant work concentrates on evidence-based prevention curriculum delivery, community coalition development, school-based behavioral health screening and intervention, and capacity-building for local prevention infrastructure across New Jersey's underserved and at-risk youth populations.