OILP Grantee Quarterly Connection
Presented by
Alison Barkloff, Jennifer Johnson, Dana Fink, Sean Barrett, Jim Mather, and Megan Sampson
June 24, 2021

>> CAROL: Good afternoon, I'm Carol with ILRU.  This transcript is being recorded and the transcript will be available at a later date.  Today you'll have an opportunity to ask questions during the webinar and we have a number of ways.  First, in the Zoom platform, one of the menu option is Q & A.  Can click to submit questions any time during the presentation and these will be addressed directly or at the end of the presentation.  There's captioning available.  You can view the captioning by selecting the CC tab on the Zoom platform.  You can make that box larger by clicking the arrow in the top right‑hand corner.  If you would prefer a larger font, I recommend you check out the full screen cart captioning and you can find the URL in the chat on the main webinar screen.
If you're on the full screen cart captioning today, there's a chat option there.  We'll be logged into that chat and you can ask your questions there as well.
And now, I'd like to turn the meeting over to Sean Barrett.  Team lead, at the U.S. department of human services.  Take it away, Sean! 
>> SEAN BARRETT: Thank you and welcome everybody to our ‑‑ I guess you could say early summer grantee quarterly, we can call it.  I'm Sean Barrett, the team lead for ‑‑ I'm a male with brown hair wearing a purple shirt and sitting if an office surrounded by Seattle mariner and university of Washington sports paraphernalia.  I want to quickly go over the agenda so you'll understand and now what is coming up next.  As mentioned, if you have questions, put them in the chat, if possible.  If you could put them in the question and answers box.  If you use one of the boxes, that way we won't have to monitor both.  And if we can't get to your question, we're tracking them and getting back to you at a later date.  We'll be kicked off shortly by the acts administrator for assistant secretary of aging, followed by updates from acting director Jennifer Johnson and myself and I'm excited if you have been attending my sessions, you know that we've been featuring ACL program, but also features partnerships with CILs and we'll versus a presentation from the traumatic brain injury state partnership program.  And then we'll have stories from ‑‑ of the use of CDC vaccine, and I'll turn it over to Alison, our acting administrator and assistant secretary for agency.
>> ALISON BARKOFF: I'm Alison Barkoff and I'll give a visual description.  A white woman with chin‑length curly hair wearing a black sweater with a patterned shirt and behind me is an ACL and HHS logo and my pronouns are she and her.  And I'm appreciative for the opportunity to speak with all of you today.  I think that the last time I was here was probably the last quarterly connection and I had just joined ACL at that time and really wanted to start by thanking everyone for the incredible work you've been doing over the last quarter.  And to really highlight how far we've come.  I think when I last spoke with you, we were truly in some of the worst of the pandemic.
Really, really focused on the COVID response, saving lives.  The vaccine was just starting to roll out and because of such strong advocacy from all of you, leadership from the administration and all of the agencies across the government, we really are now starting to move from COVID response to COVID recovery and you know, again, want to thank all of you for the incredible work you've done.  And a big part why we're there is because of COVID vaccine access.
All of you across the country are really doing so much to ensure that every single person with a disability who wants a vaccine can get one.  I have been hearing and I'm excited to hear more later today about the incredible work you've been doing in helping people register for vaccines and identify accessible sites and provide for transportation and identify people who need in‑home vaccinations.  Your partnerships with public health agency as others to do pop‑up site that focus on disabled people and caregivers, it's been amazing and one of the reasons that we've been as successful as we have been in reaching all people in our community.  We, of course, have more work to do.  But it's been really just incredible.
And we're really pleased that the CDC recognized the crucial role that ACL's disability and aging networks played and provided funding for both the direct service that y'all do in terms of vaccine access as well as funding to expand our existing aging services line to include a disability component.
I know you all have already done great work with this new funding and again, we're really interested in hearing your stories about how this funding is making a difference.  And in a few minute, Jennifer is going to give some updates on the new line I was referring to.  The disability information and access line or dial.  And I want ensuring vaccine access is not just a moral imperative, but there's an incredible important legal component to this.  Hopefully people saw in April, ACL partnered with HHS office for civil rights to put together a package of resources about the legal requirements that covered entities have.  In terms of accessibility for people with disabilities.
That's everything from physical access to accessibility of websites to providing accommodations and the HHS, OCR piece was about the legal requirements and we put together a best practices document highlighting how public entities can partner with our networks including CILs to make sure these legal requirements are met.
The last thing around vaccine access I wanted to mention is that our federal partners at the department of justice in the disability rights section have reached out to us and they're very interested in ensuring accessibility of vaccine websites and they would like to hear from you, if you or anyone that you provide services to, anyone in your communities, have experienced any web accessibility barriers on COVID vaccine registration or scheduling sites.  This includes not only websites run by public entity, might can a state or local health department, but also those run by private businesses like grocery stores or pharmacies.  I will put in the chat the contact information for two attorneys who are interested in hearing from you.
And really, appreciate if you're aware of these issues.  Again, we want to make sure that the power of the ADA is not just theoretical, but that we're actually making sure that it's a reality.
The next thing I want to briefly talk about is transition and diversion from institutional settings.
>> The CILs may such a crucial work and y'all's work is more crucial than ever.  I wanted to highlight a couple of things that have been priorities for ACL on the policy side and hopefully you see trickled down in your states.  As folks probably know, the bill passed at the end of the year, the ‑‑ the federal budget bill included a reauthorization of money follows the person.  And we have been working really closely with our federal partners.  As they've been implementing that.  Already in place are options for every state to expand eligibility of their money follows the person program.  There was a decrease in the amount of time someone has to be in an eligible institution and there are a number of states that were in the process of ending their MFP grants, but hadn't, but were invited back in by CMS and happy to share with folks, we sent out a blog about these new changes and options to states and want to make sure you're aware of them and states not currently participating in MFP, there's new opportunities coming along this fall for new states to rejoin and again, we're really happy to work with you and, of course, CILs play a really important role in advocating with states to participate in this really important program.
Some other recent updates we have shared is updates around nursing home visitation guidance and as more people have been vaccinated, nursing homes opening up and we know there were barriers as nursing homes were shut down for people being able to enter nursing homes so I want to make sure you're aware of those new policies at the fact that the waiver of collection of MDS data which includes people who are interested in leaving nursing homes that waiver of collecting the data has been lifted.  So I know those are really important resources that CILs often rely on.
And then, the last piece related to transition and diversion, I want to highlight and there's much more to come.  Is we know that one of the biggest barriers to people leaving institutions and a piece that puts people at risk of going in is the lack of affordable accessible housing.  We've been working very closely with our partners at HUD, and to identify at the public housing authority level where there are existing housing choice vouchers that are dedicated to people leaving institutions or at risk that are sitting unused and working on building partnerships between the state Medicaid and disability agencies and those public housing authorities.  We want to make sure that every single resource is used and we'll be sharing more about work that we'll be doing moving forward.
I want to also make sure that people are aware of the increased funding to states' Medicaid systems that were part of the American rescue plan.  $12.7 billion through an increased federal match.
We sent out a blog when guidance came out a month ago from CMS about the different ways that the funding can be used.  Lots of opportunities for the important work that you do in terms of transitioning people out of institutions.  Diversion, addressing the needs of people on wait lists and supporting no wrong door activities and more.  And there's an important opportunity for everyone to get engaged at their state level how to prioritize and use that funding.  Again, we have information on our website.  And state plans were due about a week ago.  But most states, I think all, but about six or seven asked for additional time and there's still opportunities for input even on the initial plan and then it will be continuing to really get flushed out over time.
A really important role for stakeholders.
And then the last thing, about increased funding, we, of course, are closely watching the conversations that are happening in congress about long‑term increased funding to home and community‑based systems.  As part of the care giving infrastructure plan, new developments just happened today on the hill with some bills being introduced and so we're closely looking at those and I really ‑‑ hopeful that we really have this, once really in an generation opportunity to expand and strengthen home and community‑based services and I think we'll have quite an impact on the work that CILs do.
And then I'll end by saying that we truly appreciate the incredible work that the CILs are doing.  And know there's been a huge increased demand on your services.  About three weeks ago, the president put out his FY '22 budget and I wanted to highlight that the budget request for independent living, a ‑‑ independent living services, I think the biggest increase ever proposed in recognition of the huge and ongoing demand for CIL services and we're closely watching.  I wanted to end by saying we know how hard you're working and how important the services that the CILs provide are and we know there's absolutely a need for more resources.
With that, I'll end by saying thank you for everything you're doing and turn it back over to Sean, I think.
>> SEAN BARRETT: Thank you!  Thank you very much.  That's great information.
I'm going to turn it right over to Jennifer Johnson.  Acting director of the office of independent living programs and other roles as well.  Go ahead.
>> JENNIFER: Thank you, Sean and Alison for joining us today.  It's great to hear about the work you're doing here at ACL and appreciate your leadership over the last several months and the direction that ACL is heading.  During Alison's short time here, she's really helped to raise the visibilities of the disability programs and ACL and partnership with CDC and resulted in unprecedented transfer resources of ‑‑ to ACL for programs to support individuals and getting vaccinated and issues such as housing and employment and equity and particularly for people who are marginalized.  As Sean said, a visual, I'm middle‑aged white woman and reading glasses on wearing black and white striped shirt and sitting in a room with pictures of my children as babies on the wall behind me and there's a table behind me with books and some other items on it.
Before I get started I would like to thank Sean for facilitating today's call and his hard work in shore of the IL program.  And I would like to acknowledge our staff and many people online today, that includes Peter and Jennifer, Veronica, Regina and Kimball.  They do a tremendous amount of work in support of the IL programs and are the strength of the organization and without them, the important work would not get done and I wanted to thank ILRU in supporting today's call and the technical assistance they provide to the IL programs.
Just a little bit more about me, because I know I'm new to this the group and this is the first time being on a grantee quarterly connection call.
I'm the acting director of the office of independent living programs and also serve as the deputy commissioner of the administration on disabilities and question I'm not the acting director of OILP, I serve as the director of the office of disability services innovation and in that office we oversee the protection and advocacy program, we have four we administer and we have the traumatic brain injury state partnership program and our two national resource centers.  The one on paralysis and the other on (indiscernible) and we have the ‑‑ DD projects of national significance.  I'm delighted to join you today and delighted to have this opportunity to serve as the acting director of OILP and it's giving me a chance to work closely with the IL programs and learn in more detail about the great work going on.  I wanted to share a little bit of my background.  I've been with HHS for nearly 18 years, and I've always worked on disability programs in my time at HHS.  And I started out my career in the classroom.
Many years ago, and some of ‑‑ work led me into working in early childhood special education.
I've also spent time working at advocacy organizations in D.C., some of those focused on disability and some focused on women's issues, but also spent time at the George Washington University where I had the opportunity to teach courses in disability policy and bilingual special education which at that time that was one of the few programs in the		 offering a focus on children with dates windows primary language was other than English and that was a great opportunity for me.  At my time at HHS, I've continued my focus on issues related to disability rights and disability justice issues and some focused on rights of young children to have equal access to the community.
I've also worked with many federal partners in my years at HHS and currently spearheading work to address data inequities for the disability population, again, working with a number of federal partners to make sure we're getting better and more frequent data on people with disabilities.
And in addition to the work I do in support of the ‑‑ and how you're making a difference and it's that local level person‑to‑person connection that makes the difference and that's the work you're doing every day and nowhere was that more important than during the public health emergency and we were concerned early on how people with disabilities would be disproportionately impacted by the COVID‑19 pandemic, but also knew that the programs including the CILs would play a critical role in supporting they will and people with disabilities getting them vaccinated and how the CILs are providing the peer‑to‑peer support and providing transportation assistance and that is you're working to establish vaccine clinics and offer vaccine clinic site so that people have a place to go to get vaccinated that's accessible because that's a real problem out and we're developing ‑‑ we're hearing about partnerships being developed with local pharmacies to help people getting vaccinated and I read a story about going to the farmers market about raising awareness about getting vaccinated.  So lots of creativity and problem solving going on and it's great to hear about.
This work is really so important to the people you're assisting because like I said, there are barriers that continue to exist that we're working to break down and we have to do this in partnership together.  And as Alison said, CILs are recognized as a resource in all of this work.  About a week and a half ago I participated in a call with our partnerships at CDC to share information that's being ‑‑ share information about the work being done with the CDC funding and on this call, it was clear that the CDC staff were really starting to understand and recognize the value of the AOD programs.  They spoke about having individual connections you're able to make, that peer‑to‑peer systems that we know work so well really is a tremendous resource they don't have and that the partnership with the ACL is a you way they can effectively reach people they wouldn't otherwise reach without that resource being available to them.
So while we continue to share the stories of the great work being done, that shows the value of the CIL network and it's equally important to hear about the challenges so we can share that information with our federal partners and can be addressed.  As oftentimes, getting the stories filtered to us from the field, we can share those with federal partners because they're not hearing those stories from the field, but we can carry the stories forward and share with our partners, whether in CMS or CDC or other parts of HHS so we can problem solve and figure out how those can be addressed and that happened early in the pandemic, we were worried about the rationing of care.  We took that issue to OCR and they immediately worked with us on that and issued a bulletin to the effect the civil rights issues related to the rationing of care.
But again, we know there's still challenges to people getting vaccinated and whether that's due to vaccine sites not being accessible or people's hesitancy to get vaccinated or other reasons, the more we know about the barriers the more we can advocate for those barriers to be addressed.  I want to thank you for everything you're doing on a daily basis and the impact you're making on individual lives.
Just a little bit on DIAL that Alison mentioned, the Disability Information Access Line.  This is the call center established through the funding we received from CDC and really, in a short amount of time, we've been able to establish dial because we've been working in close partnership with our disability partners including nickel and APRIL and ILRU.  We launched dial in early June and didn't make it public until the middle of June, but in the short amount of time that it's been around, they received 356 calls as of yesterday and shows that we're meeting a need in the disability community with a large number of calls already receiving and just being established.
Generally, what we're finding is most frequently people are calling to get general information on vaccines, but also calling to get information about in‑home services as well as in‑home or on‑site vaccinations and calling for other reasons, but those are the main reasons people are calling and people are being referred to different resources when they call in.  And some are referrals are to CILs and one of the things we've been talking about amongst our partners is how the referral process is going.  We knew going in that when a person is referred to a program like a CIL, that you may not have the answers or might be facing the same barriers as the caller so it's important to get feedback hour the referral process is going so we can continue to strengthen that referral process and in the end, we know the very least connecting someone to a resource such as a CIL can be a lifeline to that person.  Even if the CIL isn't able to solve the problems that the individual has, we find value in making that connection for that individual.
So again, I want to just acknowledge all you're doing on that front.
I wanted to turn now to provide updates on happenings at the federal level.
I hope all of you saw the president's budget for FY fiscal year 2022, if you have not, there are increases proposed for the disability programs within ACL.  For the IL program, the president proposed increases for part B and C.  For part B, there's a proposed increase of $3.1 million and for part C, there's a $29 million increase that's proposed.
And these are all proposed, so the budget ‑‑ the real budget for fiscal year '22, as you know, congress debates on the budget and will determine its own budget it will forward to the president, but what the administration has communicated to congress as they debate the budget is the administration's support for the IL programs, which is a significant policy message there.
I know many of you are wandering when a ‑‑ wondering when a new permanent director for the Office of Independent Living Programs will be hired.  At the end the April we posted an announcement about the position on the USA jobs site.  Where we post federal hirings.  We got a great response to the posting and we were glad to see the level of interest and the number of applicants to the position.
And so we had many people apply.  Unfortunately, what happened is that there were very small number of people who applied that made it through the H.R. review process and were found eligible to be interviewed for the position.  And so what we found is that the description for the position really limited the people who were determined eligible to be interviewed for the position.
So we're going back to the HHS H.R. so revise that announcement so we can repost it and get a broader pool of applicants who will make the eligibility list that we can interview than we did with the original posting.  And so we want to encourage anyone who applied to that original posting, including anyone who is on this call, to reapply when that goes out and we'll certainly announce it when it goes out.
We don't want people who applied to that original posting who might have been told they weren't eligible to be turned away from reapplying.  So again, we're going to get that message out and this is part of getting the message out to anyone who again, on this call might have applied for that position, we encourage you to reapply when it's reposted.
We know that the process is taking longer than any of us would like, but I really want to assure you we first remain focused on our support for the IL program and skin, remain committed for recruiting a new director for OILP.
I know another issue on everyone's mind is the program performance reports that you have to submit to ACL to be fiscal year '20 and I'm happy to report that we have a contract with Q09 who will be reporting a ‑‑ supporting a new reporting system for the program and we've excited to work with them and we've met with them.  They have a full plan outline and clear approach for developing new reporting platform for the programs.  The anticipated launch date for submitting reports for the CILs is August 2nd.
With a due date of middle of September.
And for the ILS program, we anticipate the system launching August 9 with the due date toward the end of September.  We'll be working closely with the Q90 in the development of the system and provide updates by email as they become available.
In the meantime, we encourage you to have reports completed in a Word document if you haven't done so already so you can submit as soon as possible when the system opens so our staff can begin the review process as soon as possible.
On a related note, our staff shared with me, they're getting a lot of questions about when the CIL award amounts will be sent out to CILs.  I understand in the past we've put together a notice of projected or estimated amount that the CILs can use for budgeting purposes until you receive final notice of award amount.
And so we're looking at getting a projected amount out to you, but you can anticipate the award timeline to be similar to past years and the amount of funding should be similar to last year's part C award.
The last thing I wanted to mention is that we have been posting a number of notices of funding opportunities including one to continue support for the self‑advocacy research and technical assistance center.  There's another one we posted on youth healthcare transitions and another we posted on community collaborations for employment that will support local level partnerships for creating more seamless transitions for youth with disabilities.  I encourage you to take a look at those and I also encourage you to be ‑‑ to consider being a grant reviewer for ACL, it's important that we get people with not just disability expertise, but lived experiences and people from multiple forms of diversity on the review panel to bring that perspective to the review of our grant applications because we use those reviews in making decisions what gets awarded and funds by us.  I encourage you to consider being a grant reviewer for ACL and Sean will provide more information about that a little later.  Thank you for joining us today and again, really glad to be here and I'm going to turn it back over to Sean.
>> SEAN BARRETT: Thank you.  Jennifer, lots of good information.
I'm going to die into a couple of quick things here.  I just put I URL in the chat.
It is what is referred to as the reviewing recruitment module and where you can go and sign up, you will enter some information about what your areas of expertise are.  And then staff across ACL will be using that as a database to recruit people to review and make recommendations on grant proposals.  Strongly encourage you to do that for a couple of reasons.  One, I'll be honest, it's easier and better for the whole process, the more reviewers we have, but to be completely honest, it's a great, great way to spread the IL philosophy across the ACL programs.  These are not just part B and part C awards.  They're all of the programs of ACL that you could potentially be called to do a review on.  We're working to include more verbiage when you've drop‑down menu to pick your area of expertise that are specifically related to IL, but there are lots of things related to disability.  So please, we encourage you.  There will be a email going out to all, you can go to the link in the chat there.  And start the process right now if you wanted to.
So there you go.
Um, moving on ‑‑ I see someone put in the chat, they say that the link is not showing.  Let me try this again.
I put it back in the chat again.  I put it there right now.  I'll tell you what, I'll ‑‑ someone else on staff can try to put it in there also.
I'm sorry, you know, technology, what can you say?  I apologize.  All of the panelists got it three times.  Now everybody has it.  Thank you for being persistent on that and I agree, Jackie, what can you do.
So one of the things I wanted to make sure, a couple of funding related things, the CDC vaccine funding is out.  279 CILs gave assurances they wanted to receive the funding.  That's out.  If you have not received a notice and sometimes emails change and there's blocks on emails or something, reach out to your P.O. and they can identify your grant award number for the CDC funding and send that to you, which might make it easier to find it in grant solutions.  Please do that.
I also wanted to let you know that just to remind you, we have sent information out about this before.
But the CARES Act funds and part B funds received a no‑cost extension which means they're available for a year longer than previously available.  On your box 6, box 6 on your notice of award, talks about project period.  That's how long the funds are available for obligation.  It's on all of the notes.
The part B award, was extended like a week or two ago, so you should have received that.  If you're a DSP, you should have received that notification.  The CARES Act extensions will be processed in July.  But you can know that that will happen.  I've had a couple of conversations and great conversations with directors whose accountants say, but it doesn't say it's extended in the NOA, and you're right, it doesn't, and appreciate there are accountants looking out for that stuff, but it will come and occur and you can budget with that.  So great.
I see a question for Alison, we'll note that and get that to her.
Thank you for that.
The ‑‑ you received ‑‑ there's a question popped up if chat.  You received an email previously, but just sent you the ‑‑ I just posted the official link that's on our page, ACL page that describes the specifics.  So please, that should be something officially from ACL you can use.
Great.
Okay, one of the things we look to do in these presentations is introduce you to other resources.  With that I'm going to turn it over to one you have our ACL partner, Dana Fink and the state traumatic brain injury program.
>> DANA: Good afternoon.  I'm Dane yea Fink, a young white woman with brown curly haired pulled back and I have the ACL and HHS logos on a virtual background.  Pronouns she and her.  I'm a project officer for the TBI state partnership program.  I'm going to give a brief overview and highlight opportunities for collaboration with CILs and turn it over to colleagues who are doing the work on the ground so you can hear real‑life collaboration examples between the traumatic brain injury and state partnership program and Center for Independent Living.
Since 1996 and came over to ACL in 2016 due to advocacy from the community.  Specifically and we had our first ACL grant cycle in 2018 and actually launching another five‑year grant cycle beginning next month.  It's perfect timing to talk about this program as we kick off with a number of returning and new slate of grantees and we're funded in the TBI reauthorization act of 2018 which funds services for people with traumatic brain injuries, if you're familiar with the protection and advocacy system.  They're two separate programs, but funded under the same line item and the funding gets split when it comes to ACL.  I have I have a slide deck.  Is someone able to put that up.
>> It's up.
>> DANA: Oh, my view doesn't show it.  Go to the second slide.  Appreciate it.  Sorry about that.
This slide lists the program purpose and a few numbers to know.  The program purpose is to create and strengthen person‑centered culturally competent systems of services and supports that maximizes the independence, health and well‑being of all people with TBI across the lifespan and assists their family members and support networks.  That's a mouthful.  We don't provide the direct services themselves, but and facilitate access to get those services to the people who need them.  The next slide, please.
So these are the program activities that we do that the traumatic brain injury state partnership does.  We're in 27 states, the activities vary depending which state you're in, but some are required activities and some optional and then we support unfunded states.  If you're in a state that doesn't have a grant currently funded we can still connect you to traumatic brain injury work that's going on in that area, we have a fabulous technical assistance and resource center that serves people in funded and unfunded states regardless.
Some of the ‑‑ oh, and I should mention, TBI state partnership programs are housed at what is considered the lead state agency for TBI, that's determined by the state itself, the governor's office or any other leadership of the state.  So where the TBI are housed, can vary.  Health agency, developmental disabilities agency, rehab, and they vary and leads to the diversity of the activities and services provided.
Subcontracted agencies both funded and unfunded partners are critical to the success of the grants and includes nonprofits and centers for independent living, many who are funded partners and some unfunded as well.
Next slide.  If you can go back to the program activity slide.  I apologize, I can't see, my perspective is off here.
So the program activity, the first listed here is the advisory board.  This is a self‑advocate led advisory board or council, we stole lessons learned from the CILs and made a determination ‑‑ we took the 50%, not the 51%, but these boards and councils need to be run by 50% people with TBI injuries, or survivors, as many are them like to be known and to ensure air diversity of voices participating in determines what the needs of people with brain injury are and recommending actions to those needs and helps to create a structure for statewide collaboration.  And the next activity, state plan, this usually begins with a needs and resources assessment to conduct what the need are with the ‑‑ and the gaps and barriers preventing people from accessing services people with traumatic brain injuries from accessing services and support and once the needs are identified, the state can develop goals and put together the state plans and addressing the services and supports and that's another great way that CILs can have a role, with the ‑‑ with taking part in the state plan and coordination on that front.
Something that we're going to be requiring with the new slate of grantees is resource facilitation, it's happening in most states around the country and essentially help to link people with brain injury to resources and services and supports, both at the time of injury and throughout the lifespan and can vary from a one hand off and could be a referral to a CIL, from a CIL, to a more intensive period of case management or service coordination.
And then we get into activities that are not required, but being done in most of the states that have these programs.  One of these is screening and this is screening and identification for the likelihood of a brain injury.  At Center for Independent Livings, you could can serving people that you don't know have a brain injury and they could also not know.  This is one of those funky things that you could have a concussion or not have a concussion and have repeated blows to the head and really not know why things are changing for you and not notice what is going on in your life and could be because you have a TBI, something like screening is important and you might not be able to see from a medical test, like a MRI.  We have a number of tools, highly adaptable and could be administered by professionals or loved ones or service providers and sole self‑administered and used in a variety of settings.  Tribal populations and incarcerated individuals and domestic violence shelters and can get trained on how to provide these if interested.
Data collection, there's not really great data what is the prevalence of TBI and can make it challenging for the need for services and support and we keep track of who is living in independent living settings and who is in integrated employment and other important factors for people with brain injuries.
Training, can run the gamut, could be training for people with traumatic brain injuries or family members and people working with people with TBI which could be anyone from teachers and coaches, hospitals and law enforcement, staff of other organizations like centers for independent living and topics can vary from a 101 to an intersection of behavioral health or education, employment or independent living.  And this I'm going to touch on quickly, these are the topical work groups that grantees are part of.  We don't just work individually with the states, but work to bolster the national impact of the project.  These workgroups are primarily for grantees, but open to others.  If you're specifically interested in TBI or the intersection of one of these category, please get in touch and I can get you in touch with the folks running those workgroups.  I'll run through next quickly.
Advisory boards and survivor engagement, using data to connect people to services.  Return to learn and return to play.  And criminal and juvenile justice, and mental illness, SUD and opioid use.  Sustainable partnerships, and transition and employment.
Underserved populations and again, a really big topic that could be broken into multiple topics and right now, the folks has been on underserved and racial equity and rural and homeless and tribal populations.  And the last two work groups are waivers and trust funds and professional development for the traumatic brain injury workforce.
Next slide, please.
This is some state examples and I'm going to skip the first two.  Arkansas and California, because we're lucky to hear from them today.  They're on the call and they can tell you what they're doing on the state level.  I will mention two other states ‑‑ the CILs might be there, but the traumatic brain injury programs couldn't be here on the call.  Colorado and Nebraska.  Colorado as I mentioned, the trainings are really popular and that's how they got started with collaboration with the CILs.  Doing joint trainings, particularly around independent living and it's really ‑‑ it's really broadened.  Nebraska and also the Center for Independent Living sits on the Colorado advisory board as is the case for many states.  If you're a center for independent living and don't know about the traumatic brain injury advisory board that's the first point of entry I can recommend you to through the trainings.  And Nebraska has done trainings with their Center for Independent Livings, and challenged it to a pilot program they'll launch in August here.  With ‑‑ calling on the expertise of CILs around peer‑to‑peer support and they're going to be working on a project on customizing discovery tools and engagement and training guides and policies and protocols and other materials to meet peer support needs for people with brain injuries and has been providing a lot of expertise around the service delivery infrastructure of this piece.
We don't have a ton of time so I'll stop talking and turn things over to Jim and then Megan.  And Jim, he's with the Center for Independent Living in Arkansas.  And he can talk a little bit how the Arkansas state partnership program TBI program came to him and what they're doing now and then we'll roll into Megan Samson, with the Department of Rehabilitation in California and both the TBI state partnership program and diversity centers for independent living, at the state level.  A unique position.
>> JIM: We might run out of time, the captioner leaves at 4:00.  I'm going to post some stories of people using the CDC funds in the chat so you have those examples. 
>> DANA: And on the last slide, I have my contact information and I'll put that into the chat as well.  Thank you.  
Jim?
>> JIM: Good afternoon, thank you, Dana and allowing me to take a few minutes to talk about partnerships in support the traumatic rehabilitation resources program for individuals who experience brain injury.  I'm Jim, a middle‑aged white male with sandy shoulder‑length hair wearing a black shirt.
Asked early on to be an advisory member with the grant and we did our CIL thing and information referral was first and foremost and here's the stuff that we do.  And we started really digging into a waiver program that in the past was for people with physical disabilities, but is now opened up and for individuals that experience issues with activities of daily living which some individuals with traumatic brain injury may experience.  Looking how they could be enrolled in our waiver program and with that, comes case management, could come with case management and all the way up to the WIPA project, work project for the state of Arkansas and looking at individuals interested in employment after they're experienced injury, and how they affect benefits.  Medical benefits and cash benefits if they receive any.
And led us into, as Dana mentioned, the state plan.  Sources was helped Arkansas right the TBI state plan and from that, one.
The roles that the state plan identified was to have a series of many conference ‑‑ mini‑conferences across the state to get information out to people who experience a brain injury, but also to constituents and supports for those individuals that experienced brain injury.  So one was held in northwest Arkansas and we were able to use our mailing list to get a high turnout for the training session.
And most importantly, host a peer support program weekly virtually for individuals who experience brain trauma and their families and support systems and that's on a secure network and we're able to share information and also along with UMS, we have a trained professional expert on TBI to answer medical questions for individuals who may have medical questions, but we run the kind of peer support aspect of that.
And future, again, Arkansas' applied for the new round of dollars and expand our peer support program and in the form of MRU to provide training to care coordination or case management and whatever the program decides to do and that's briefly what we do with the partnership.
>> DANA: Thank you, Jim.  Let's roll on to Megan.
>> MEGAN: I'm Megan Samson.  I'm chief of independent living assistive technology.  And I'm a 35‑year‑old white woman with disabilities, including a traumatic brain injury.  And have short brown hair and wear glasses and wearing a floral dress and at my home office behind me is a bunch of art from my kids.  
And our traumatic brain injury is comprised of state funding and federal funding.  State funding ‑‑ we provide direct services and the state partnership program funds our ‑‑ our program which has our committees and boards and programmatic initiatives and we're excited to move into a survivor‑only committee which will help to generate program and training materials for medical rehabilitation and community support professionals about the needs of TBI survivors and their families, not just for TBI survives, but generated by TBI survivors and is linguistically and cultural competent and instead of just being medically based, going to be ‑‑ we've been lucky to have a lot of our independent living centers involved.  Being active member of the board and providing services to our TBI survivors.  Either through independent living services such as peer support benefit council U counseling and transition and diversion services and information referral and free speech generating devices through our voice options program.  For those who cannot speak and who have difficulty speaking.  I'm speaking fast and if you have questions, you can email me.
And we're excited to move into our future collaborations with independent living centers and want to create additional trainings and resources to help identify, traumatic brain injury early and deeply.  It's something that is often overlooked especially in populations such as domestic violence and homelessness and these are going to be areas we're going to focus, especially for entities that intersect in these areas.  (indiscernible).
Back to you, Sean.
>> SEAN BARRETT: Sorry to interrupt, we're losing the captioner.  We need to wrap up.  It's difficult to follow and listen and read the stories, we'll definitely share all of the information that's presented here in another format, probably through our monthly email and this is being recorded and will be available on the ILRU site.  
Thank you, everybody.  Sorry to wrap it up.  We're losing the captioner.  Thank you, we'll have another one of these in about three months.