Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) State Partnership Grant Program

What is a TBI?

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) can happen when an external force causes severe damage to the brain. Common causes of TBI include falls, automobile accidents, and sports injuries. There are many different names for TBI such as concussion, Shaken Baby Syndrome, head injury, or anoxia (loss of oxygen) due to trauma. Data from NIDILRR-supported research finds 1.56 million TBIs are sustained in one year. 

TBI can affect many parts of a person's life. People living with TBI and their families often require a range of services and supports. Individual needs are different and can change over time, so it is important that systems provide person-centered services and supports.

TBI Technical Assistance and Resource Center (TBI TARC)

ACL’s TBI Technical Assistance and Resource Center helps TBI State Partnership Program grantees promote access to integrated, coordinated services and supports for people who have sustained a TBI, their families, and their caregivers. The Center also provides a variety of resources to non-grantee states, people affected by brain injury, policymakers, and providers.

TBI TARC is committed to integrating the voice of people with lived experience of TBI into its products, resources, and technical assistance approach. The Center’s activities are overseen and guided by people with lived experience and other subject matter experts.

Have a question about TBI or ACL’s TBI Programs? The TBI TARC team is here to help. Send your inquiry or request to tbitarc@hsri.org to receive help.

Other Resources:

• Modifying Psychopharmacologic Interventions for Traumatic Brain Injury
  This brief, Modifying Psychopharmacologic Interventions for Traumatic Brain Injury, produced by ACL's Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Technical Assistance and Resource Center (TARC) provides clinicians with information and an array of accessible approaches for modifying psychopharmacologic interventions for TBI. This brief is also geared towards assisting brain injury personnel partner better with their behavioral health providers on best practices for TBI related interventions. Content for this brief was drawn from Section VI. Psychopharmacologic Interventions for TBI, of the Administration for Community Living 2022 Behavioral Health Guide: Considerations for Best Practices for Children, Youth, and Adults with TBI. The section was written by Michael Chiou, MD, and Lindsey Gurin, MD, NYU Langone Health.

• Brief on Modifying Clinical Interventions for TBI
  This brief of the ACL's Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Technical Assistance and Resource Center’s (TARC) Modifying Clinical Interventions for TBI highlights considerations and best practices for the diagnosis and treatment of mental health disorders in people with TBI. The brief also includes challenges related to brain injury and provides recommendations and strategies for clinical intervention. Content for the brief was drawn from “Section V. Modifying Clinical Interventions for TBI”, of the ACL Behavioral Health Guide: Considerations for Best Practices for Children, Youth, and Adults with TBI (acl.gov), released in 2022. The section was written by Theo Tsaousides, PhD, ABPP, clinical assistant professor, and Maria Kajankova, PhD, assistant professor, Department of Rehabilitation and Human Performance, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

• Behavioral Health Guide: Considerations for Best Practices for Children, Youth, and Adults with TBI
  ACL's Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Technical Assistance and Resource Center’s (TARC) Behavioral Health Guide: Considerations for Best Practices for Children, Youth, and Adults with TBI was designed to provide state brain injury professionals with the tools to effectively partner with their state behavioral health entities and improve outcomes for this population.

• Engagement Strategies for Survivors
  This guide is a resource for individuals with brain injury to be fully participating board members. It was developed by the TBI Advisory and Leadership (TAL) group to serve as a companion document to the Traumatic Brain Injury Advisory Board Toolkit.

• Building Up TBI Systems: Tools for Successful TBI State Programs
  Since 1997, grantees have worked to increase access to brain injury services and to bolster the systems that advocate on behalf of people seeking services. The considerations and strategies laid out here are based on these grantees’ experiences. Broken out by program stage, they are useful for states at all levels of program and system development—from those that are just beginning to develop infrastructure to those with developed infrastructure in place.

• Brain Injury and COVID-19: Tips for Successful Navigation
  The introduction of COVID-19 to the human population around December 2019 has resulted in a pandemic that continues to affect the entire world. Little attention has been placed on the effects of the fallout caused by COVID-19 on individuals who are living with brain injury. Highlighted in this document are the effects of COVID-19 on five members of the TBI TARC’s TBI Advisory and Leadership (TAL) group and strategies for coping that have worked for them.  

• Model Systems Knowledge Translation Center: Traumatic Brain Injury (funded by NIDILRR)

• National Data and Statistical Center for TBI

Webinars:

2023 ACL Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Partners Day

In observance of Brain Injury Awareness Month 2023, the Administration for Community Living (ACL) hosted a virtual TBI Partners Day on February 28, 2023 from 12:00 to 4:00 pm ET. The event included opening remarks from Jill Jacobs, Commissioner of ACL’s Administration on Disabilities. 

Four sessions were held, the first was on aging and included presentations from Edwin Walker, JD, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Aging at ACL and John D. Corrigan, PhD, the Director of the Ohio Brain Injury Program, one of ACL’s funded TBI State Partnership Program (SPP) grantee.

The second session was on employment and highlighted were resources from the ACL Administration on Disabilities funded Disability and Employment Technical Assistance Center (DETAC) and included presentations from Amy Gonzalez, MS, Project Manager at DETAC, Eileen Kelly, TBI Program Manager of the Minnesota Department of Human Services (another ACL funded TBI SPP grantee), and Jill Ferrington, CRC, CBIS, Technical Assistance Advisor at the National Association of State Head Injury Administrators.

The third session was on peer support and include presentations from three members of the TBI Technical Assistance and Resource Center, TBI Advisory and Leadership Group (TAL-Group): Clifford Hymowitz, Carole Starr, and Maria Martinez.

The final session was on the intersectionality of TBI and other medical and social issues and included presentations from Shawn Callaway, Project Officer at ACL and two TAL-Group members, Eric Washington and Martin Kerrigan.

Webinar recording (captioned)

Webinar slides

August 10, 2022: Getting and Staying Involved in the Brain Injury Community

This Administration for Community Living (ACL) Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Technical Assistance and Resource Center’s (TARC) webinar focused on how brain injury survivors can become involved and stay actively engaged in community, state and national brain injury initiatives. TBI survivors discussed how survivors can collaborate on all aspects of board and committee development, management, and engagement, as well as effective advocacy. The audience for the webinar are survivors that are currently engaged in brain injury initiatives, those who would like to be engaged, brain injury program staff, community brain injury providers, and other stakeholders. The presenters were staff of the TBI TARC and members of the TBI Advisory and Leadership Group (TAL-Group).  

The webinar was live-captioned and ASL-interpreted. If you have any questions about the webinar, please do not hesitate to contact the TBI TARC at tbitarc@hsri.org.

Presenters:

• Maria Crowley, TBI TARC Technical Assistance Lead
• Judy Dettmer, TBI TARC Technical Assistance Lead
• Carole Starr, TBI Survivor, Speaker, Author, Advocate, and TAL-Group member
• Cheryl Kempf, Brain Trauma and PTSD Survivor, Advocate, Speaker, and TAL-Group member
• Clifford Hymowitz, Brain Injury Survivor, Mental Health Peer Specialist, and TAL-Group member
• Kelly Lang, Survivor, Caregiver, Former Board Member, and TAL-Group member

Webinar recording (captioned)

Webinar slides

June 22, 2022: Introductory Webinar to the Behavioral Health Guide: Considerations for Best Practices for Children, Youth, and Adults with TBI

Introduced during the webinar was the Administration for Community Living (ACL) Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Technical Assistance and Resource Center’s (TARC) Behavioral Health Guide designed to provide state brain injury professionals with the tools to effectively partner with their state behavioral health entities and improve outcomes for this population. The guide’s authors provided an overview of the various sections and answered questions about applying some of the tools and strategies identified within a state system. The guide is available for downloading at Behavioral Health Guide.

The webinar was live-captioned and ASL-interpreted. If you have any questions about the webinar, please do not hesitate to contact the TBI TARC at tbitarc@hsri.org.

BH Guide Sections and Presenters:

Section 1: Purpose of the Guide and Overview of Behavioral Health and TBI, Judy Dettmer, BSW, TBI TARC and the National Association of State Head Injury Administrators (NASHIA)

Section 2: Partners and Strategies, Thomasine Heitkamp, LCSW, Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Dakota

Section 3: Training Approaches, Maria Crowley, MA, CRC, TBI TARC and NASHIA

Section 4: Screening for Lifetime History of TBI, John D. Corrigan, PhD; ABPP; Professor, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation; and Director, Ohio Valley Center for Brain Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation, the Ohio State University

Section 5: Modifying Clinical Interventions for TBI, Theo Tsaousides, PhD, ABPP, Clinical Assistant Professor, and Maria Kajankova, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Rehabilitation and Human Performance, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Section 6: Modifying Psychopharmacologic Interventions for TBI,  Lindsey Gurin, MD and Michael Chiou, MD,  NYU Langone Health

Webinar recording (captioned)

Webinar slides

Webinar Spanish transcript

2022 TBI Stakeholder Day

View the summary, download materials, and watch the video replay.

2021 TBI Tuesdays Webinar Series

In observance of Brain Injury Awareness Month 2021 and in lieu of the Administration for Community Living’s annual in-person Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) Stakeholder Day, we hosted virtual TBI Tuesdays (1:00 - 4 pm ET) during the months of March and April. See this webpage for webinar replays and materials.

December 18, 2020: Telehealth During a Pandemic: Maintaining Accessible Services

Webinar details and materials.

About the TBI State Partnership Grant Program

The TBI State Partnership Grant Program provides funding to help states increase access to services and supports for individuals with TBI throughout the lifetime. This grant program is one component of the federal TBI Program, along with Protection & Advocacy, which is expected to:

• Help states expand and improve state and local capability so individuals with TBI and their families have better access to comprehensive and coordinated services.

• Generate support from local and private sources for sustainability of funded projects after federal support terminates. This is done through state legislative, regulatory, or policy changes that promote the integration of TBI-related services into state service delivery systems.

• Encourage systems change activities so that individual states can 1) evaluate their current structures and policies and 2) improve their systems as needed to better meet the needs of individuals with TBI and their families.

Grants to States

Federal TBI Program grants to states have undergone several changes since the TBI Act of 1996 mandated the program. The most recent state grants were awarded in 2014 and require that grant activities increase access to rehabilitation and other services. Specifically, the states must address four barriers to needed services by:

• Screening to identify individuals with TBI

• Building a trained TBI workforce by providing professional training

• Providing information about TBI to families and referrals to appropriate service providers

• Facilitating access to needed services through resource facilitation

State Partnership Grants (SPGs) cannot be used to support primary injury prevention initiatives, research initiatives, or the provision of direct services. Funds may be used, however, to educate the public about the causes, symptoms, and treatment of TBI.

Between 1997 and 2018, 48 states, two territories, and the District of Columbia received at least one state agency grant. For the current funding cycle (FY 2018-2021), 24 states receive funding for State Partnership Program grants. See "Current Grantees" below. A new funding cycle (FY2021-FY2026 for up to 28 states is anticipated to start on July 1, 2021.

Current Grantees

State	Organization	Current Contact(s)
AK	University of Alaska Anchorage	Karen Heath kheath@alaska.edu   Lucy Cordwell lkcordwell@alaska.edu   Kenneth Kuykendall kwkuykendall@alaska.edu   Sondra LeClair sleclai1@alaska.edu
AL	Alabama Department of Rehabilitation	April Turner april.turner@rehab.alabama.gov   David White David.white@rehab.alabama.gov
AR	University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences	Danny Bercher  BercherDaniell@uams.edu
CA	California State Department of Rehabilitation	Will Blalock William.Blalock@dor.ca.gov   Tanya Thee Tanya.Thee@dor.ca.gov Megan Sampson Megan.Sampson@dor.ca.gov
CO	Colorado Department of Human Services	Liz Gerdeman liz.gerdeman@state.co.us
GA	Georgia Department of Public Health	Kenisha Tait kenisha.tait@dph.ga.gov
IA	Iowa Department of Public Health	James Pender james.pender@idph.iowa.gov   Maggie Ferguson Maggie.Ferguson@idph.iowa.gov
ID	Idaho State University, Institute of Rural Health	Russ Spearman spearuss@isu.edu
IN	Indiana State Department of Health	Brian Busching bbusching@isdh.in.gov   Wendy Waldman wenwaldm@iu.edu
KS	Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services	Susan Segelquist susan.segelquist2@ks.gov
KY	Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services	Donald Scott Collins donald.collins@ky.gov
MA	Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission	Amanda Tower Amanda.Tower@mass.gov
MD	Maryland Department of Health, Behavioral Health Administration	Stefani O'Dea stefani.odea@maryland.gov   Anastasia Edmonston anastasia.edmonston@maryland.gov
ME	Maine Department of Health and Human Services	Derek Fales derek.fales@maine.gov   Sarah Jordan sjordan@biausa.org
MN	Minnesota Department of Human Services	Eileen Kelly eileen.kelly@state.mn.us
MO	Missouri Department of Health	Jennifer Braun jennifer.braun@health.mo.gov
NC	North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Division of Mental Health	Scott Pokorny Scott.Pokorny@dhhs.nc.gov
ND	North Dakota Department of Human Services	Rebecca Quinn rebecca.quinn@und.edu
NE	Nebraska Department of Vocational Rehabilitation	Keri Bennett keri.bennett@nebraska.gov   Tresa Christensen tresa.christensen@nebraska.gov
NJ	New Jersey, Department of Human Services	Dr. Margaret Lumia Margaret.lumia@dhs.nj.gov
OH	Ohio Valley Center for Brain Injury Prevention & Rehabilitation, Ohio State University	Brei Miller Brei.Miller@osumc.edu
OR	University of Oregon, Center for Brain Injury Research and Training	Megan Jones jonesm@cbirt.org
PA	Pennsylvania Department of Health, Bureau of Family Health, Division of Community Systems Development and Outreach	Nikki Adams nicadams@pa.gov   Cynthia Dundas cdundas@pa.gov
RI	Rhode Island Department of Health	Jolayemi Ahamiojie Jolayemi.Ahamiojie@health.ri.gov   Carmen Boucher Carmen.Boucher@health.ri.gov
SC	South Carolina Department of Disabilities and Special Needs	Melissa Ritter mritter@ddsn.sc.gov     Harley Davis Harley.Davis@ddsn.sc.gov
TN	Tennessee Department of Health	Ashley Bridgman Ashley.n.bridgman@tn.gov
UT	Utah Department of Health, Violence, and Injury Prevention Program	Traci Barney tabarney@utah.gov   Daniel Musto danielmusto@utah.gov
VA	Virginia Department of Aging and Rehabilitative Services	Donna Cantrell donna.cantrell@DARS.virginia.gov   Chris Miller christiane.miller@dars.virginia.gov
WV	West Virginia University, Center for Excellence in Disabilities	Amanda Acord-Vira amanda.acordvira1@hsc.wvu.edu