Students in Perry County schools are in line for school-based mental health services under two of the 138 grants Gov. Kay Ivey announced Monday, Aug. 24, in the first round of the Alabama Rural Health Transformation Program.
Cahaba Medical Care Foundation, the Centreville-based community health center that operates a clinic on Washington Street in Marion, received $958,307 to expand its school-based behavioral health services in Bibb County and establish new services in Perry County. Rural Health Medical Program Inc., the Selma-based health center founded in Uniontown in 1977 that operates health centers in Marion and Uniontown, received $660,527 to establish school-based behavioral health services in Clarke, Dallas, Marengo, Monroe, Perry and Wilcox counties.
Neither grant description names the schools or school systems to be served.
The awards are part of a package of 138 grants worth more than $144 million. No Perry County institution is a direct recipient in this round, but the county is named in the service areas of 22 of the funded projects.
The program, known as ARHTP, is administered by the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs with money from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It is Alabama’s share of the $50 billion, five-year Rural Health Transformation Program created in the federal tax and spending law Congress passed in July 2025. The state’s first-year award is $203.4 million, and the program is 100 percent federally funded.
Five of the 11 initiatives in the state’s plan were funded in this round: rural health, rural workforce, mental health, rural health practice, and a shared initiative covering electronic health records, information technology and cybersecurity. Grants under the remaining initiatives will be announced later, the governor’s office said.
“Alabama is serious about creating systematic changes through the ARHTP to ensure every citizen has access to quality care,” Ivey said in the announcement.
ADECA Director Kenneth Boswell said the awards came at the end of a process that included six informational meetings around the state, five grant application workshops and hundreds of applications.
Cahaba was the most frequent recipient in the round, with eight grants totaling about $4.4 million. Six of them list Perry County.
Beyond the school-based mental health award, Cahaba received $2.28 million to establish a centralized shared-services hub and expand clinical capacity for new and expanded primary care and behavioral health services in Bibb, Dallas, Marengo, Perry and Wilcox counties; $106,500 for a telehealth and specialty consultation program across six rural clinics to bring dermatology services closer to home; $69,159 to replace its telehealth platform with a more user-friendly system for virtual primary care and behavioral health visits; and $212,180 to strengthen cybersecurity across its clinic network.
A $100,127 workforce grant will fund recruitment incentives for fourth-year medical students who enter the rural or frontier track of the Cahaba+UAB Family Medicine Residency and commit to at least five years of rural service in Bibb, Perry and Wilcox counties.
Faulkner University in Montgomery received $2.08 million to establish the Eagle Care Mobile Health Network, using two mobile health care units, virtual visits, remote health monitoring and care coordination to bring ongoing services to underserved communities in eight counties, including Perry.
The DCH Health Care Authority in Tuscaloosa received $2 million to establish a dedicated non-emergency medical transportation program across 10 west Alabama counties, including Perry, and $3 million to recruit and retain two interventional cardiologists, a heart rhythm specialist and two advanced practice providers to expand cardiovascular care in the region.
Three hospitals outside the county received technology grants that list Perry County in their service areas. J. Paul Jones Rural Emergency Hospital in Camden received $116,880 to reduce provider documentation burden and strengthen tele-neurology and stroke care, plus $839,753 to upgrade its information technology, cybersecurity and electronic health record systems. UAB St. Vincent’s Chilton in Clanton and UAB St. Vincent’s St. Clair in Pell City each received $839,753 for similar upgrades.
Anderson Family Care in Demopolis was awarded $177,961 to open weekend clinic hours for patients in Perry, Greene, Hale, Marengo and Sumter counties.
The University of South Alabama received $1.51 million to build a technology and interoperability network serving 10 rural hospitals across 17 counties, and $1.25 million to expand physician residency training in rural settings and train community health workers, telehealth staff and billing personnel in the same 17 counties, including Perry.
Other grants naming Perry County include $935,895 to AltaPointe Health Systems for a school mental health crisis telehealth network covering 44 counties; $867,102 to the Alabama Primary Health Care Association for a shared technology and care coordination framework among health centers, rural clinics, hospitals and community mental health providers in 43 counties; $1.38 million to the Regional Training Institute for two mobile emergency medical services training units serving 36 counties; $975,000 to Faulkner University for tuition assistance to health profession students who commit to five years of rural service; and $241,894 to Alabama Vascular Specialists to expand its Selma satellite clinic from one day a week to two.
The governor’s office said the funded projects cover rural areas in every Alabama county. The complete list is posted on the governor’s website.
