FY26 Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act Program

The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) is the component of the U.S. Department of Justice responsible for advancing the practice of community policing and the Administration’s priority of Making America Safe Again by supporting the nation’s state, local, territorial and Tribal law enforcement agencies through information and grant resources. This is a notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) for the FY26 Law Enforcement Mental Health and Wellness Act (LEMHWA) Program. The mental health and wellness of law enforcement officers and their families is a priority of the Administration. Through the LEMHWA program, the Department of Justice supports this priority by providing funding directly to state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) law enforcement agencies to implement new or enhance existing programs that offer training and services to support officers emotional and mental health including, counseling programs, peer mentoring, suicide prevention, stress reduction, and police officer family services. As community policing is common sense policing, throughout the FY26 LEMHWA program NOFO materials, the terms “community policing” and “common sense policing” are used interchangeably, unless otherwise specified. The COPS Office seeks to increase the delivery of and access to mental health and wellness services through this NOFO in the following three funding categories: Category 1: FY26 Start-up LEMHWA Implementation Projects • The purpose of this program is to provide funding to law enforcement agencies that do not have established law-enforcement specific mental health and wellness programming. These funds will serve as start-up funding to support the development of new mental health and wellness services and programming for employees of law enforcement agencies and their families. This program also serves to increase grant funding accessibility for small and understaffed departments, especially those in rural communities, to implement mental health and wellness programs. • Implementation of peer support, training, family resources, suicide prevention, stress reduction, clinical support, and other promising practices for wellness programs are highly encouraged. • Agencies that currently offer rudimentary or limited wellness services and are seeking to develop a comprehensive wellness program for their department are encouraged to...

CATEGORY 1 APPLICANTS: Eligibility is limited to is limited to state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies. Agencies must have primary law enforcement jurisdiction within their area of responsibility. Agencies that respond only to certain types of crimes, such as statewide investigative agencies, or only to crimes occurring within correctional institutions, are ineligible. Prior existence of a chaplaincy program or an EAP program does not disqualify applicants from seeking programming under this category. Applicants that have received LEMHWA funding in the past are ineligible for awards under this category. CATEGORY 2 APPLICANTS: Eligibility is limited to is limited to state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies. Agencies must have primary law enforcement jurisdiction within their area of responsibility. Agencies that respond only to certain types of crimes, such as statewide investigative agencies, or only to crimes occurring within correctional institutions, are ineligible. Existing LEMHWA awardees are eligible to apply but requests for new funding should not be for the continuation of current or past projects. Proposed work should enhance or expand existing mental health and wellness efforts. CATEGORY 3 APPLICANTS: • Eligibility is limited to for-profit (commercial) organizations, nonprofit organizations, institutions of higher education, community groups, and faith-based organizations.

General criteria for selecting proposals are set forth in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, Public Law 103-322. Additional Criteria may be developed by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and will be published in the Notice of Funding Opportunity application materials.