‘Deliberate trauma’: SAMHSA employees detail a federal agency in shambles
Staff cuts at SAMSHA will imperil federal efforts to curb suicides and drug overdose deaths, employees say.
The new administration’s decision to fire a tenth of the workers at the federal government agency that oversees mental and behavioral health will imperil efforts to curb suicides and drug overdose deaths, according to current and former employees.
Roughly 100 employees of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration were let go according to insiders’ estimates. That’s more than 10% of the agency’s workforce, the 2025 fiscal report shows. The stories from former and current workers, who spoke with STAT on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation, mirror similar news of chaos and confusion spilling out of other health agencies, as the Trump administration laid off probationary employees, mostly without notice and often under false allegations of poor performance. The actions, one employee said, were causing “deliberate trauma.”
