Administration for Community Living awarded HSRI the lead on The ACL Grassroots Project

The Administration for Community Living (ACL) awarded HSRI the lead on The Grassroots Project: Engage. Connect. Advocate., which will use a multi-system (e.g., national, state, and local) approach to:

  • Develop structures, processes, and relationships necessary to build the next generation of cross-disability, cross-generational, and culturally diverse leaders within the advocacy movement.’
  • 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.

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

HSRI will work with nine subcontractors to form the National Advocacy and Action Coalition:

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

These groups, together with HSRI, will engage with state and local advocacy and action groups to support the growth of a robust grassroots disability advocacy network.

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 Vice President (IDD-AD)