Recently, ACL’s Administration for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities awarded $1.85 million in funding to University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDDs). The funding includes a grant to establish a new training center supporting people with developmental disabilities and co-occurring serious mental illness, as well as grants to continue efforts to promote diversity and cultural competence across the developmental disabilities network through diversity fellowships and partnerships with minority-serving institutions.
Serious Mental Illness Grant
ACL is awarding a three-year $700,000 grant to the Human Development Institute at the University of Kentucky to create a national training center that will help build capacity within the DD network to support people with co-occurring developmental disabilities and mental illness live in the community.
These individuals experience a number of unique challenges to community living including in obtaining an accurate diagnosis and coordinating an array of treatment interventions and supports. Treatment and supports often require collaboration between providers from both the public mental health system and the developmental disabilities service system.
Implementing Partnerships with Minority-Serving Institutions
ACL awarded three-year grants to five UCEDDs to implement partnerships with minority-serving institutions (MSIs). MSI partnership implementation grants will provide $50,000 a year to each of five UCEDDs to continue and strengthen partnership with MSIs or community colleges. The institutions will jointly implement training and knowledge exchange with the goal of promoting interdisciplinary approaches to research, training, and services. The grants were awarded to UCEDDs at:
- Georgetown University, for a partnership with Trinity Washington University, an MSI in Washington, DC.
- Minot State University, for a partnership with Turtle Mountain Community College, a tribally-chartered college in North Dakota.
- Northern Arizona University, for a partnership with the Navaho Technical University.
- University of Arizona, for a partnership with Tohono O’odham Community College, a tribal college located in the Tohono O’oham Nation in Southern Arizona.
- University of South Dakota, for a partnership with Sinte Geska University, a tribally-chartered institution of higher education.
Diversity Fellowships
ACL awarded one-year grants of $50,000 each to eight UCEDDs for diversity fellowships. The fellowship programs support the recruitment and retention of trainees from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds to participate in a fellowship experience that includes the opportunity to make systemic change through a capstone project and community-based activities.
Grants were awarded to UCEDDs at:
- Georgetown University
- Georgia State University
- University of Cincinnati, Children’s Hospital Medical Center
- University of Georgia
- University of Iowa
- University of Minnesota
- University of Montana
- University of Southern California, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles