Center of Excellence to Align Health and Social Care: Enhancing Community-Based Aging and Disability Organizations to Improve Access to Long-Term Services and Supports

Background
The Administration for Community Living (ACL) plans to award a cooperative agreement with a single entity to serve as a national Center of Excellence (COE) to support the development and enhancement of aging and disability organizations funded by ACL to become community care hubs (CCHs). The successful recipient must demonstrate their capacity to work collaboratively across relevant stakeholders to provide technical assistance that improves access to long-term services and supports (LTSS) through CCHs as well as the ability to rapidly deploy and manage competitive subawards directly to an estimated 20 aging and disability organizations.

Grant Details
The grant aims to support the development and enhancement of Community Care Hubs (CCH) which are providing key access functions within a community such as coordination of information and referral, screening, care coordination, care transitions, eligibility and enrollment, and person-centered planning.

The grant will fund approximately 10 grantees for a two-year project period. Participants will complete an Organizational Capacity Assessment to identify capacity to coordinate and streamline contracting, quality assurance, IT system and data integration, and workforce development, as well as access to a menu of social service options so that individuals can obtain the social care they need through a single point of entry. The grant also aims to identify up to 5 regional Centers for Excellence to help provide technical assistance, mentoring, and facilitate partnerships across health payers and LEs.

Eligibility Requirements
Domestic public or private non-profit entities including state and local governments, Indian tribal governments and organizations (American Indian/Alaskan Native/Native American), faith-based organizations, community-based organizations, hospitals, and institutions of higher education are eligible to apply.

Period of Performance
The organization selected will be funded for a 36-month project period. An informational conference call will be held on May 16, 2023. A recording will be available approximately one hour after the call concludes.

Grant Value
$11.5 million total funding with an expected number of awards being 1. The total budget requested may range from $10.5 million to a maximum of $12.7 million for the three-year project period.