The Administration for Community Living (ACL) has announced a new funding opportunity to address the direct care workforce (DCW) crisis by establishing a new, “Technical Assistance and Capacity Building Initiative” that will fund one (1) five-year cooperative agreement to create and maintain a National Technical Assistance Center. Estimated total funding will be $1.2 million to $1.3 million, per year for the five-year project period. You can view the grant opportunity here: View Opportunity | GRANTS.GOV.

Grant Applications are due: June 28, 2022, 11:59 pm ET. An “Informational Teleconference for Interested Applicants” will be held on Tuesday, May 17 at 3:00 – 4:00 pm ET: Number: 888-942-9712; Participant passcode: 5313288. Letters of intent (optional) due: May 31, 2022.

ACL seeks to advance capacity to recruit and retain a high-quality, competent and effective direct care workforce of professionals capable of meeting the growing needs that older adults and people with disabilities have for such supports. The technical assistance center will address the insufficient supply of trained direct care workers at a systems level, promote promising practices at all levels of the service system. and improve data collection to enable a full understanding of the workforce issue.

Eligible applicants include public and private non-profit entities, community-based organizations, faith-based organizations as well as institutions of higher education. When fully operational, the ACL envisions the technical assistance center will become a central hub for state, private, and federal entities involved in the hiring and workforce development associated with the delivery of HCBS to access a curated array of model policies, best practices, training materials, technical assistance and learning collaboratives. In developing their proposals, applicants should describe the approaches they will employ to help realize ACL’s vision.

ACL expects that no single organization will be able to completely fulfill the priority areas addressed in this project. Therefore, applicants should describe how they plan to partner with other organizations, including those representing the needs of traditionally unserved and underserved, including those from racially and ethnically diverse populations, with intersectional identities.

The link to additional information on the grant is available at: https://acl.gov/grants/open-opportunities. If you have difficulty accessing the full announcement electronically, please contact: Caroline Ryan, caroline.ryan@acl.hhs.gov