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ACL Announces New Grant Focused on Peer Support

October 9, 2018

ACL is pleased to highlight a new grantee in its 2018 Chronic Disease Self-Management Education cohort focused on peer support using the evidence-based intervention Wellness Recovery Action Plan, or WRAP®. In addition to the Administration on Aging (AoA), ACL’s National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) has also supported the development and implementation of this impactful intervention. 

The grant, which began on July 1, 2018, and totals $838,425 over three years, was awarded to the Center on Mental Health Services Research and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where Dr. Judith Cook is the Project Director. WRAP® is a wellness and recovery approach that helps people to: 1) decrease and prevent intrusive or troubling feelings and behaviors; 2) increase personal empowerment; 3) improve quality of life; and 4) achieve their own life goals. It has been implemented nationally and internationally by the Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery. Peer support is a well-established strategy proven to reduce problematic health behaviors and depression.

Evidence for WRAP® has demonstrated that it reduces psychiatric symptoms, and increases recovery, self-advocacy skills, self-esteem, and social support. WRAP guides participants through the process of identifying their personal wellness resources and developing an individualized plan to use these resources on a daily basis to manage their behavioral health condition. Information is imparted through lectures, discussions, and individual and group exercises. People with behavioral health conditions, including older adults and people with disabilities, as well as military personnel and veterans, have benefited from WRAP®.  

Dr. Cook is also a NIDILRR grantee who leads the Rehabilitation Research and Training Center on Integrated Health Care and Self-Directed Recovery, a national research and resource center to promote recovery, health, and employment for people with serious behavioral health conditions. AoA and NIDILRR are excited to support Dr. Cook and her team’s efforts to scale WRAP® to improve the lives of older adults with behavioral health conditions.

Learn more about ACL’s Chronic Disease Self-Management Education grant program.

Read about the 2018 Chronic Disease Self-Management grant awards.


Last modified on 05/13/2020


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