LAWRENCE, KS – INDEPENDENCE, INC. is proud to announce that it has received a $40,000 Nursing Home Transition grant through our State Association, Kansas Association of Centers for Independent Living (KACIL), from the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation. The award was one of 7 grants totaling $280,000 awarded by the Reeve Foundation to Centers for Independent Living (CILs) nationwide for nursing home transitions. This grant program is part of the Quality of Life grants program, conceived by the late Dana Reeve, which has awarded over 2,900 grants totaling over $22 million since 1999. Funding for the grants is made available through the Paralysis Resource Center (PRC) operated by the Reeve Foundation under a cooperative agreement with the Administration for Community Living in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
INDEPENDENCE,
INC., along
with other Kansas CIL’s,
will
use the grant for
transitioning
our consumers with paralysis from institutional settings such as
nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities, into the community to
live independently. Funds will be used for expenses incurred in these
transitions including rental and utility deposits, assistive
technology, home modifications and other home essentials needed to
live with independence.
Independence,
Inc. is honored to be among the Centers for Independent Living
(CIL’s) who have been awarded this grant.
We give our greatest thanks to the Reeve Foundation for their vision
and nation-wide efforts to increase the quality of life for people
with disabilities and for supporting the work to transition these
consumers from institutional to community-based living.
The
PRC's Nursing Home Transition Grant Program funds Centers for
Independent Living across the country to transition people with
paralysis living in nursing homes back into their homes or a
community-based setting of their choice. Under the Workforce
Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) passed in 2014, CILs are
charged with supporting individuals to transition into
community-based settings as a new core service, but CILs often lack
the resources to do so robustly. The PRC's NHT grants serve to
supplement the work CILs are already doing to fulfill their
responsibilities under WIOA and to help achieve the Reeve Foundation
and ACL's shared mission of full community participation for people
with disabilities. For this grant, paralysis is functionally defined
as a difficulty and/or inability to move one's arms and/or legs due
to a neurological condition such as spinal cord injury, traumatic
brain injury, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis, ALS,
and many other chronic conditions that coexist with developmental,
congenital, and acquired disabilities.
These
grants are intended to improve the quality of life for individuals by
becoming part of the solution nationwide to decrease the unnecessary
segregation and isolation of individuals living with functional
paralysis," said Maggie Goldberg, VP of Policy and Programs at
the Reeve Foundation. "Our new program funding allows us to
further help the aging and paralysis populations and create more
community inclusion, which is our ultimate goal. We are excited to
have this opportunity to expand our grant program, and hope to work
with them again in the future."
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