With the inception of the SAMHSA Strong initiative in 2021, buttressed with SAMHSA’s commitment for
employee engagement, the concept of a SAMHSA-wide Mentorship Program was conceived. Based upon the
feedback received from the 2022 Federal Employees Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) it was determined that
there was a need, and a want, for some type of mentoring or coaching program where employees who
were new to SAMHSA or new to their Federal career altogether could be matched with a more tenured
employee to help guide and strengthen their professional foundation as they grew in their career.
In conjunction with the Partnership for Public Service, SAMHSA launched a pilot mentoring program
that was open to the newest employees of SAMHSA. This has largely been a manual process and based
on meetings conducted with HHS’ Mentoring Program Director and CDC’s Mentoring Program Manager, it
was strongly encouraged, even for a smaller program, to have an online platform with an intuitive
interface which will streamline the matching process, track progress and produce data reports and metrics.
