Mississippi mental health providers were among thousands scrambling Tuesday night after sudden sweeping federal funding cuts threatened to immediately shut down mental health and addiction programs nationwide, a decision reversed the following day with no explanation.
Keenyn Wald, clinical and operations director for Community Counseling Services, said he received a letter around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, notifying him that grant funding for the organization’s Systems of Care program, which provides mental health services to hundreds of Mississippi children, had been suspended, effective immediately.
“With these services, we go into schools (and) we go into homes,” Wald told The Dispatch on Thursday. “One of the benefits of this program is we get to go where they’re at. … There’s a big gap if we lose this program. There are people that suffer.”
But a little after 10 a.m. Thursday, Wald received a second email, stating the decision had been reversed. The restoration notice offered no explanation for the change.
Community Counseling Services was one of more than 2,000 SAMHSA grant recipients nationwide to receive a termination letter, resulting in the halt of roughly $2 billion allocated for mental health and addiction programs, according to national media outlets.
Letters of termination were sent out Jan. 13, citing that programs no longer aligned with “current agency priorities.” That decision was reversed late Wednesday.
The Systems of Care program at Community Counseling Services, part of SAMHSA’s Children’s Mental Health Initiative, provides high-level mental health services, including therapy, psychiatric care and peer and community support, at no cost to youth age 4 through early 20s across seven Mississippi counties, including Lowndes, Oktibbeha and Clay.
The potential loss of grant funding would have meant the immediate end of that program, Wald said, which provided roughly 4,000 services to about 200 clients across all seven counties in 2025, accounting for roughly 18% of its youth clients.
“It was impacting because … it didn’t feel like there was any recourse,” Wald said. “It (said) this is done. Immediately we thought of staff (and clientele), and we as a leadership team met on Wednesday … and sort of had to plan … how do we transition operations? Because we can’t provide this same type of care without this grant funding.”
Wald said that while Community Counseling Services could remain open during the suspension, leadership had to prepare for difficult decisions about who could be served.
“We’re community mental health, but a cup can only hold so much water, and so we were trying to figure out priority cases,” he said. “Who do we transfer? Who do we get into right away? And those are always really hard decisions when mental health doesn’t always have a clearly defined barometer. There’s not always a good measure of who we need to make sure to prioritize right now. As therapists and as a mental health provider, we want to prioritize all of our clients, and so that was what we were discussing and making a plan for. There’s no way to sugarcoat it though, that the cut would have resulted in care not being provided in the same capacity, in the same timeline as it was previously, which is dangerous.”
‘It’s bad business’
The suspension also shuttered Mississippi State University’s Behavioral Health Clinic on Wednesday. The organization, which provides therapy to people struggling with learning disorders, mental illness and substance-use issues, released a statement that afternoon notifying clients to anticipate the immediate cancellation of all appointments.
“It has been a privilege to support you and we are deeply sorry for the disruption this causes to your care,” the statement reads.
Sid Salter, MSU vice president of strategic communications and director of public affairs, said the funding has since been restored and operations at the clinic are expected to resume as soon as today or Monday.
“We’re in a situation where the research and the services delivered under those grants by the Mississippi Behavioral Clinic have significant value, and they were programs we were proud to administer and the patients that received those services, I think, saw value in them too,” Salter told The Dispatch on Thursday. “… Beyond that, as far as the university is concerned, we’re grateful that the administration re-evaluated that decision and decided to continue to provide that grant funding so that the good work that (MSU Behavioral Clinic) is delivering can continue.”
Wald said his staff has been on high alert since a previous federal grant funding pause in early 2025, when officials froze the disbursement of grants across health and human services programs as part of a broad review of agency priorities. Even with funding now restored, Wald said the uncertainty worries him.
“They’re pretty much saying this program doesn’t align with our priorities, and there’s nothing you can do about it,” he said. “… It’s just bad business. I’m a realist, and I know that certain administrations that come into the federal government have different goals. I don’t know how the Children’s Mental Health Initiative is not something that’s in line with … whatever people made this decision at SAMHSA. I don’t know how our program doesn’t align with that.
“It is extremely bad business and dangerous to cut funding, period, but even more so when that funding is cut with no opportunity to plan and move forward,” he added. “… (MSU Behavioral Clinic) had to shut their doors right away. There is no more funding. It’s done. That is so dangerous and so short-sighted. That makes me worry very much that it could happen again. I’m confident in our ability to respond and to put a plan in place as an agency, but it’s there.”
No public statements from SAMHSA or the Department of Health and Human Services had been released by press time Thursday.
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