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HRSA State Implementation Grants for Integrated Community Systems worth $1.8 million Awarded
HRSA Awards Support President’s ‘New Freedom’ Initiative for Disabled Americans
HRSA grants worth $3.2 million will help integrate individuals with disabilities into their communities in support of President Bush’s New Freedom Initiative.
The Initiative, announced by the President within two weeks of taking office in 2001, promotes the full participation of people with disabilities in all areas of society by increasing access to assistive and universally designed technologies, expanding educational and employment opportunities, and promoting increased access into community life.
The FY 2006 awards will help improve access to quality, comprehensive and culturally competent care for children and youth with special health care needs (CYSHCN) and their families. An estimated 13 percent of U.S. children have special health care needs, defined as requiring care and services beyond those of most children. HRSA’s Maternal and Child Health Bureau leads the nationwide effort on behalf of CYSHCN under the New Freedom umbrella.
The awards will benefit CYSHCN by:
- helping families partner with health care providers in making medical decisions;
- getting special needs children into a “medical home” for regular medical visits and referrals for specialty care;
- helping provide adequate private or public medical insurance coverage;
- enabling early and ongoing screening and surveillance;
- encouraging easy-to-use community-based services; and
- providing youth with special needs services for transition to adult life.
Six grantees won State Implementation Grants for Integrated Community Systems worth $1.8 million. Grantees will work with state Title V programs to put plans in place to integrate all of the six core objectives listed above into a health care system that makes it easier to serve CYSHCN. Needs assessments and data collection and analysis will aid in the process.
The six awards, each worth $295,500, went to the Navajo Nation in Window Rock, Arizona; the Maine Department of Health and Human Services; Trustees of Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.; Health Research, Inc., through the New York State Department of Health; the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services; and the Rhode Island Department of Health.
Organizations in six states (Florida, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Tennessee and Vermont) will each receive $100,000 grants to support Family-to-Family Health Care Information and Education Centers for Families of Children with Special Health Care Needs. These centers, run by families in partnership with State Title V agencies and other providers, help families navigate the health care and social services systems by offering health and related information to families and providers, assisting families in gaining access to and using community services, and providing leadership training to family members. |
President Bush’s FY 2007 budget proposal includes $3 million in grants for the Family-to-Family centers under the Family Opportunity Act of 2000. That legislation allows states to offer middle-income families of children with disabilities the option of buying into Medicaid.
Additionally, national resource centers in Utah and Maine each received $400,000 in cooperative agreements to work with policymakers, community groups, families and state Title V programs to improve services to CYSHCN in community health care systems. The funds also will help CYSHCN access other services to help them live independent lives and enter the adult workforce.
The awards went to the National Resource Center for Inclusive Community Integrated Services at Utah State University and the Healthy and Ready to Work National Resource Center at the Maine Department of Health and Human Services.
Last Updated
March 13, 2007
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