Background

The National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) represents nearly 3,000 local health departments (LHDs) across the United States. NACCHO’s vision is health, equity, and security for all people in their communities through public health policies and services. NACCHO’s mission is to be a leader, partner, catalyst, and voice for local health departments to ensure the conditions that promote health equity, combat disease, and improve the quality and length of all lives.

NACCHO works to provide technical assistance support to substance use prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery programs, and is collaborating with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Health & Human Services’ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to coordinate the expansion of the National Harm Reduction Technical Assistance Center (NHRTAC).

The NHRTAC is an online hub that allows public health programs to submit technical assistance (TA) requests that are responded to by an on-demand team of technical assistance providers. It was established in 2019 by CDC, initially with a team of three TA providers, and responding primarily to requests for TA from harm reduction programs and syringe services programs. In 2021, SAMHSA entered into an historic agreement with CDC to support the expansion of the NHRTAC to provide TA to SAMHSA partners, such as substance use prevention, treatment, and recovery programs, including to successful applicants to SAMHSA’s Harm Reduction Grant Program.

A significant component of the expansion of the NHRTAC will be a marketing, identity, communications, and demand creation activities to broadly publicize the availability of TA around harm reduction for public health programs nationally, some of which may be unfamiliar with harm reduction approaches and their applicability to prevention and control of substance use disorder and opioid overdose.

Description and Availability of Funds

NACCHO will award up to $150,000 to a consultant to develop and support implementation of a marketing and communications plan for the NHRTAC. The consultant will work with NACCHO and NHRTAC stakeholders to develop communications and marketing goals for the NHRTAC, design and establish an identity for the NHRTAC, identify target audiences, develop messaging and media for demand creation, and support implementation of marketing and communication activities identified in the plan.

The consultant(s) may work with other consultants or firms to complete the work. However, NACCHO will only contract with and provide funds to the selected consultant(s).

Deadline/ Staff Contact

Submissions must be electronic, in pdf format. The deadline for submission is 5 pm, Eastern Standard Time, Monday February 28, 2022. Decisions will be made, and applicants will be notified of their selection status, no later than Friday March 11, 2022.

View the Request for Proposals for more details and the proposals should be submitted, in pdf, via e-mail to Lucy Slater, Senior Director, of HIV/STI and Viral Hepatitis.