News

June 30, 2022 New Jersey's Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee and General Assembly Budget Committee voted yesterday on a $50.6 billion FY2023 budget bill, a record high and well above Governor Murphy's proposed $48.9 billion budget. Floor votes in both houses were to take plac...

June 28, 2022 Last week, Rutgers University President Jonathan Holloway announced the Rutgers Future of Work initiative, allowing for employees to utilize flexible work arrangements for a year-long pilot program, beginning on September 1, 2022. The announcement comes a year after Ho...

June 23, 2022 A bipartisan group of Senators released on Tuesday the text of a bill to combat gun violence, the "Bipartisan Safer Communities Act". The legislation would include state funding to implement "red flag" laws and enhanced background checks. The Senate voted in favor of...

June 21, 2022 NJAMHAA received confirmation from the Governor's Counsel that Executive Order (EO) 292 issued in April 2022, which extended all Administrative Orders, Directives and Waivers listed in the Appendix to EO 281, supersedes the expiration dates specified in statute (P....

June 20, 2022 As laid out in the National Suicide Hotline Designation Act of 2020, a new number will be available for people experiencing mental health crises to call or text, scheduled to be rolled out nationwide by July 16th. The new number, 988, is expected to be easier to remem...

June 16, 2022 On June 15, 2022, Governor Phil Murphy, Senate President Nicholas Scutari, and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin announced the expansion of the Affordable New Jersey Communities for Homeowners and Renters (ANCHOR) program. This expansion includes increased investment from ...

June 14, 2022 "A bipartisan group of senators announced Sunday that it had reached a tentative agreement on legislation that would pair modest new gun restrictions with significant new mental health and school security investments - a deal that could put Congress on a path to enacting...

June 13, 2022 Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R.2377, the Federal Extreme Risk Protection Order of 2022, that would allow families, police, and others to ask federal courts to order the removal of firearms from people at extreme risk of harming themselves or othe...

June 9, 2022 On October 1, 2021, rates for Day Services (i.e., Career Planning, Community Inclusion Services, Day Habilitation, Prevocational Training - Group and Individual, and Supported Employment - Group and Individual) were increased due to one-time funding appropriated to the Di...

June 7, 2022 In response to recent mass shootings, including that which took place in Uvalde, Texas at Robb Elementary School that claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers and wounded 17 other people, communities in New ...

June 6, 2022 Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), announced a one-year extension to the time that states will have to use American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding to enhance, expand, and strengthen home-...

June 2, 2022 Yesterday, on the final day of Mental Health Awareness Month, the White House released a fact sheet highlighting the Biden-Harris Administration's strategy to address the national mental health crisis. The statement noted that the U.S. is facing an unprecedented mental...

June 1, 2022 The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has shared a variety of resources for SAMHSA Region II in the wake of the tragedies of Buffalo, NY; Uvalde TX; and the 211 prior mass shootings so far this year. Support resources following recent sc...

On Thursday, a bipartisan group of Senate Finance Committee Leaders prosed a plan for expanding telehealth access for mental health services. The committee's plan would eliminate Medicare's in-person visit requirement prior to patients seeking online mental health services. This requi...

Yesterday, Trust for America's Health released a report that found that alcohol, drugs, and suicide accounted for 186,763 deaths across the U.S. in 2020. In New Jersey, there were 826 alcohol-induced deaths and 2,921 drug-related deaths in 2020. These numbers represent increases of 2...

Shootings, Tragic Deaths and Lasting Trauma Underscore Need for Strong Laws and Increased Access to Services - Statement from Debra L. Wentz, PhD, President and CEO The New Jersey Association of Mental Health and Addiction Agencies, Inc. (NJAMHAA) is devastated to hear about the hor...

May 25, 2022 Statement from Debra L. Wentz, PhD, President and CEO The New Jersey Association of Mental Health and Addiction Agencies, Inc. (NJAMHAA) is devastated to hear about the horrific loss of 19 students and two teachers, and serious injuries to several more children and ad...

May 24, 2022 Nearly all of the money in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that was dedicated directly to the COVID-19 response has been spent, and the White House is planning for a number of contingencies if more COVID-19 funding is not approved by Congress. Among these contingen...

May 23, 2022 Open conversations about mental health that have occurred as a result of the pandemic are helping to eliminate stigma, which is the greatest factor that prevents individuals from seeking help. An extremely powerful tool is sharing experiences with mental health challenges...

May 23, 2022 The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) implemented a COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) in January 2020. Since then, the PHE has been continually reviewed and renewed. The last official extension of the PHE took place on April 16, 2022, which extended the P...