The Grassroots Project

Opportunity

The Grassroots Project is a national effort to support disability grassroots advocacy. This new initiative is administered by Human Services Research Institute ​with funding from the Administration for Community Living.

Approach

The Grassroots Project uses a multi-system (e.g., national, state, and local) approach to:

1.  Develop structures, processes, and relationships necessary to build the next generation of cross-disability, cross-generational, and culturally diverse leaders within the advocacy movement.
2.  Connect, grow, and strengthen networks of grassroots advocacy and action coalitions supporting each other and with the skills and knowledge to advocate for improvements in the quality of community-living supports.

Impact

The project advances ACL’s efforts to support grassroots engagement in the implementation of the HCBS settings rule and ACL’s program priorities and focus areas, including:

• Person-centered planning, consumer direction, and self-direction
• Caregiver crisis
• Health and safety in community living
• HCBS settings rule
• Civil Rights
• Community integration
• Technology

HSRI is working with ten subcontractors to form the National Advocacy and Action Coalition:

• Association of Programs for Rural Independent Living
• Association of University Centers on Disabilities
• Autistic Self-Advocacy Network
• National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities
• National Association of Statewide Independent Living Councils
• National Associations of State Head Injury Administrators
• National Council on Independent Living
• National Disability Rights Network
• National Paralysis Resource Center
• Self-Advocacy Resource and Technical Assistance Center

Related news, publications, and resources

• Administration on Community Living awarded HSRI the lead on The ACL Grassroots Project
• Webinar: Finding One’s Advocacy Community: Stories and Insights from the Disability Community
• Webinar: Coalition Building: Strategies and Perspective in Disability Advocacy

This is a tremendous opportunity from ACL to invest in the power of connecting disabled people to have a voice in and control over their lives through grassroots impact on systems of support.

Kate Brady, co-director of The Grassroots Project

We are thrilled to continue HSRI’s long-standing relationship with ACL and partners to develop networks of people and co-create solutions that support meaningful improvements in community living.

Alixe Bonardi, co-director of The Grassroots Project and HSRI Vice President – IDD-AD