Center for Substance abuse Treatment (CSAT)
The Challenge
The Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), within SAMHSA, is tasked with advancing substance use treatment and recovery support services nationwide—particularly for underserved, high-risk, and diverse populations. To carry out this mission effectively, CSAT must engage a broad network of stakeholders, including federal and state partners, grantees, clinicians, researchers, and community organizations, while ensuring that critical policies, program guidance, and best practices are clearly communicated and widely adopted.
This work requires the seamless coordination of large-scale meetings, conferences, and advisory groups—often involving hundreds of participants and complex logistics across both in-person and virtual environments. In parallel, CSAT must develop high-quality training materials, technical resources, and communications that support workforce development, strengthen provider capacity, and address emerging behavioral health priorities such as opioid use, mental illness, and health equity.
Compounding this complexity is the need to align multiple stakeholders and subject matter experts, manage competing priorities, and deliver consistent, high-impact engagement experiences. CSAT needed a partner capable of not only executing these efforts at scale, but also enhancing the quality, accessibility, and strategic value of its stakeholder engagement and technical assistance initiatives.
Event Management
Technical Assistance
Stakeholder Engagement
Materials Development
Website Development & Communications support
OUR APPROACH
A-G Associates served as a strategic partner to CSAT, delivering integrated meeting, event, and technical assistance support designed to elevate stakeholder engagement and strengthen program delivery nationwide.
A-G led the planning and execution of more than 15 events annually, spanning in-person and virtual formats. From national advisory council meetings to policy academies and stakeholder convenings, the team managed every aspect of delivery—logistics, travel, communications, facilitation, and post-event reporting—ensuring seamless, high-quality experiences.
Each engagement was designed to do more than convene participants—it created space for meaningful dialogue and collaboration. A-G brought together grantees, clinicians, policymakers, and subject matter experts to exchange insights, surface challenges, and inform program and policy direction.
To extend the impact beyond each event, A-G developed training materials, toolkits, reports, and guidance documents tailored to diverse audiences. These resources supported workforce development initiatives, certification programs, and policy academies, helping providers and organizations build capacity and respond to emerging behavioral health needs.
Throughout the engagement, A-G provided disciplined program management, coordinating across federal leadership, consultants, and stakeholders. This ensured alignment, maintained quality and consistency across deliverables, and integrated expert input into communications, presentations, and reports.
THE Impact
Through its partnership with CSAT, A-G Associates significantly strengthened the agency’s ability to engage stakeholders, deliver high-impact events, and expand access to critical behavioral health resources. By successfully executing more than 200 events, A-G helped connect thousands of participants across the behavioral health ecosystem—creating consistent opportunities for knowledge sharing, collaboration, and alignment on national priorities.
These efforts enhanced CSAT’s ability to disseminate timely policy guidance and program information, while elevating the voices of subject matter experts and community stakeholders. At the same time, A-G’s development of training materials, technical resources, and workforce initiatives contributed to building a more skilled and prepared behavioral health workforce—particularly through programs supporting clinicians, students, and historically underrepresented groups.
Collectively, this work enabled CSAT to operate more efficiently at scale, strengthen its national reach, and better support providers and communities in delivering effective substance use treatment and recovery services
