North Texas Behavioral Health Authority

North Texas Behavioral Health Authority is a not-for-profit organization headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that operates as a federal grant recipient focused on substance use disorder and co-occurring mental health disorder treatment and prevention services for children, adolescents, and young adults across a six-county North Texas region (Dallas, Ellis, Hunt, Kaufman, Navarro, and Rockwall Counties). NTBHA acts almost entirely as a sub-recipient (97% of awards), with a single significant prime federal grant award and a portfolio of downstream grant sub-awards flowing primarily through the Health and Human Services Commission of Texas.

NTBHA's federal footprint is heavily concentrated within the Department of Health and Human Services. The top customer, SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, accounts for a material share of recent sub-awards, alongside SAMHSA's broader behavioral health portfolio, the Administration for Children and Families, and a single award from the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Assistance. Across all awards in the source data, six distinct federal agencies have flowed dollars through NTBHA since 2018.

NTBHA's flagship prime grant is a $475,812 five-year project award from SAMHSA's Center for Substance Abuse Treatment under the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment Projects of Regional and National Significance program (CFDA 93.490), awarded on September 30, 2026, with period of performance through September 29, 2031. The project, titled "Meeting Kids Where They Are: Building Age-Appropriate Substance Use Care and Prevention in North Texas," expands NTBHA's existing certified community behavioral health clinic capacity to serve no fewer than 30 unduplicated individuals in year one and no fewer than 80 in each subsequent year, totaling at least 350 across the five-year period. Services are split evenly between adolescent outpatient substance use disorder and co-occurring disorder treatment (ages 12–17) and prevention education (ages 11 and under), with young adults ages 18–25 served through the adolescent outpatient track. NTBHA implements CRAFFT 2.1+N screening, extended buprenorphine-naloxone medication for opioid and alcohol use disorder, a developmentally adapted outpatient treatment model, Rainbow Days' evidence-informed curriculum-based prevention programming, case management, and peer recovery support in partnership with Homeward Bound Inc. (NTBHA's designated substance use disorder treatment provider), Child and Family Guidance Center, and Southern Area Behavioral Healthcare Services.

The majority of NTBHA's recent federal funding flows as sub-awards, primarily from the Health and Human Services Commission of Texas as pass-through grantee. Sub-grant work includes rental assistance programs (providing up to twenty-four months of rental assistance to eligible households), local mental health authority performance agreements, substance abuse intervention and treatment initiatives, transition support specialist grants, rural crisis response diversion grants, and mental health crisis stabilization navigator grants. Activity has accelerated year over year from two awards in 2021 to a peak of thirty-five in 2025, with thirteen awards in 2026 through September. Combined dollars obligated across all eighty-six awards total $69.7 million since 2018.