HHS-2021-ACL-AOA-LRLI-0045 Informational Conference Call Transcript 4-16-2021.pdf

Lifespan Respite Care Program: State Program Enhancement Grants

HHS-2021-ACL-AOA-LRLI-0045

Informational Conference Call Transcript Moderator: Lori Stalbaum April 16, 2021 - 2:00 pm ET

Coordinator:

Welcome and thank you for standing by. At this time today’s call is being recorded. If you have any objections you may disconnect and you may begin when ready.

Lori Stalbaum (speaking from page 1 through 14):

Hi, good afternoon. This is Lori Stalbaum. I want to welcome and thank everyone for joining us on this informational conference call today.

Today’s conference call, we’re going to discuss the funding opportunity announcement for the Lifespan Respite Care Program, State Program Enhancement Grants. The goal of this call is to walk through the funding opportunity announcement itself, highlight some particular things we think you should pay attention to and also answer any questions you may have.

As the operator noted this conference call is being recorded. For that is a parent copy of today’s transcript including the questions and answers at the end of the call will be posted on www.grants.gov Web site in about a week or so. So please mute your phones, star 6 please.

As I said my name is Lori Stalbaum and I’m a management and program analyst here at the Administration on Aging, which is a center within the Administration for Community Living.

I’m the lead project officer for all the grants funded under the Lifespan Respite Care Program.

I’m responsible for ensuring the grantees are working within the requirement under the Act and the funding opportunity announcement with the life of each project. I am your main go-to person for all programmatic issues related to this project.

Also joining us on the call today is Sherlonda Blue, the grants management specialist of the Lifespan Respite Care Program. Sherlonda handles the business functions between ACL, AoA and the grantee. You would interact with Sherlonda on questions about budget reporting, drawing down funds, et cetera. Sherlonda and I work very closely together as a team to provide the best service we can to our grantees.

Also joining the call today from ACL, AoA are Greg Link and Sara Vogler. Greg Link was the original project officer for the Lifespan Respite Program when AoA first started awarding grants back in 2009. As you can imagine, Greg is the subject matter expert on this program and we’re http://www.grants.gov/ happy to have him here. He’s also my supervisor and the Director of AoA’s Office of Supportive and Caregiver Services. Sara Vogler is also a project officer for some of the Lifespan Respite grants. She’s my back go-to program partner.

So to begin this call is scheduled for about an hour. We’ll take all the time we need. We may not need that much time. We may need a little extra. But I want to make sure people get their questions answered and we have an opportunity to go through everything as clearly as possible.

So first I want to take an opportunity to highlight some key dates you need to be aware of in preparing your application, then I’ll go through the funding opportunity announcements pretty much page by page and highlight some of the key points we’ve identified. Following that we’ll open up the lines for your questions and answers.

So first some key dates. Today’s conference call, April 16th again is being recorded so we can post a transcript in the next week or so. Letters of intent are due Monday, April 19th. I want to encourage you to consider emailing one to me even if you don’t (unintelligible) submit an application. Submitting the letter of intent does not commit you to actually completing an application.

Letters of intent provide a great planning tool for us to use while we’re structuring the objective application review process. Knowing ahead of time approximately how many applications might be coming in helps us determine the number of grant reviewers we need as well as how to structure the objective review process which in the long run helps expedite the overall review process.

Because we’ll be doing virtual or conference call reviews knowing approximately how many applications we’re getting out help - helps me and the logistics planner plan for the appropriate number of reviewers and review panels, et cetera. The letters of intent should be emailed to me at Lori, LO-R-I, dot Stalbaum, S-T-A-L-B-A-U-M at ACL dot HHS dot gov. Then finally the big date, application deadline is 11:59 pm Eastern Time on Tuesday, May 21.

Applications must be submitted electronically via grants.gov. The due date is not negotiable.

Applications received after the due date will not be considered for funding. I’ll talk more about that, about the specific submission process in a little bit.

The projected start date for these state program enhancement grants is estimated to be July 1.

Please note however July 1 is an approximate date for these projects start. The actual project start date may be later than this depending on how quickly we are able to process applications.

Also some of you may know that ACL has used additional funding in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 which was signed by President Biden on March 11.

This is wonderful news. It’s truly wonderful. However it also means ACL’s Office of Grants Management is working triple time to get this special funding out as soon as possible which may affect our ability to meet the estimated July 1 start date. So those are the key dates to keep in mind as you begin your work.

I’ll talk later about the actual plan submission process which you’ll want to begin preparing for well in advance when you actually push the submit button in grants.gov and you submit your application. A friendly reminder, there are items in grants.gov that have to be renewed annually such as task work. So you’ll want to check those things before you go into the submission phase.

So now, moving into the funding opportunity announcement. I’m going to walk through page by page like I said for the most part and the page numbers I’m going to reference are from a PDF copy of the funding opportunity announcement. So I’ll be referencing the PDF page numbers which are one number ahead of the numbers on the bottom right corner if you’re looking at a printed copy of the funding announcement.

As we walk through I’ll try to call your attention to things I believe are of greatest importance or if I don’t answer a question you have during this time please do feel free to ask us during the question and answer period. So first we have the cover page which provides the project name Lifespan Respite Care Program, State Program Enhancement Grants.

The funding opportunity announcement number which starts with HHS-2021 and the application due date which is again May 21. Next we have the table of contents which we’ll outline all the sections that are in every ACL funding opportunity announcement and which I will try to reference as I walk through the funding announcement with you.

So now beginning on PDF page 3 of 51 the actual funding opportunity information and requirements begin. Here you will see the funding opportunity number again which you will need to access the application materials and submit your application in grants.gov. This is followed by the key dates which I just mentioned.

And finally at the bottom of page 3 but really we’re on the top of page 4 of 51 we come to the executive summary. Key items of note in the executive summary include an overview of some of the key points such as eligibility requirements as stated in the statute for the Act, Lifespan Respite Care Act, a summary of expectations for those who are awarded funding, the fact that we expect grantees to build on advancements made under previous grants, focusing on improving equitable access, consistency, quality, sustainability and reducing duplication of respite service delivery and finally we expect - note that we expect that this is highly competitive funding opportunity.

One other item in the executive summary, the third paragraph indicates that we expect the funds up to eight cooperative agreements but the item I really want to bring out of note is that this year for the first time these will be five-year project periods, five-year grants. Task program enhancements have three year project periods. This funding - so this funding structured different from previous years in that we’ve increased the project period from five years rather than three years.

So it’s $275,000 maximum each year of five years. So beginning on the top of page 5 of 51 the funding opportunity description begins. Section 1 is broken into several sub sections starting with the purpose. In the purpose section we expand on the information provided in the executive summary with some sub priority considerations drawn directly from the Act itself.

Be sure your application speaks to these important factors. Be sure that as you write your application you clearly demonstrate that your activities will expand or enhance your state and local lifespan respite care systems by improving statewide dissemination and coordination to respite care, to improve access to and the quality of respite care services in your state.

Remember grantees are required to provide service to all family caregivers regardless of age, disability or chronic condition of the person receiving care from the caregiver. Grantees are also required to develop and provide new and emergency respite services, train and recruit respite workers including volunteers and assist caregivers in gaining access to respite care services that meet the needs of both the caregiver and the person in their care.

Moving to the bottom of page 5 of 51, we provide some background information, an overview if you will of local Lifespan Respite Care Act. In this subsection we lay out several key objectives the Act is intended to accomplish. The Act seeks to expand and enhance respite services provided in states, improve coordination and dissemination across a variety of funding sources, improve access to programs by streamlining the means by which consumers access programs and fill service gaps where necessary and improve the overall quality of the respite services available in your state.

In the middle of page 6 of 51 we have a new subsection this year titled the Evolving Respite Environment. Since the passage of the Act states have made considerable progress in providing respite care but we have also learned a lot and seen many -- excuse me, could you please mute your phone, star 6, please -- positive changes.

For example throughout the current pandemic respite programs have had to evolve to meet the changing needs and circumstances of families and they have. The impact of COVID-19 on all communities across all age groups have affected every state’s ability to provide respite services.

Because of this state coalitions had to find other ways to provide meaningful respite services.

And while we know this has been a very difficult time for everyone, truly for everyone we also know many valuable lessons have been learned.

Another thing that has evolved is our knowledge about providing services that are culturally competent and serve to meet the cultural needs of family caregivers and the people they care for.

In your applications we do want you to discuss how you will promote equity through service access and provide culturally competent services.

Finally we strongly encourage you and anyone who will be working with you on your application or your project to read the full text of the Lifespan Respite Care Act of 2006 and the Lifespan Respite Reauthorization Act of 2020 in their entirety. And as Acts go they are fairly short.

We provided links to both of these in the second paragraph on page 7 of 51. The first is to the full text of the 2006 Act which is I think 7 - 6 or 7 pages and the other is the text of the reauthorization act of 2020 which is the House bill language as the official document has not been released for our sharing yet.

So towards the middle of page 7 of 51 begins the program priority section of the funding opportunity announcement. This is a big section and a key one for you to focus on. I want to note that it goes from page 7 of 51 all the way through the top of page 11 of 51. We start this subsection by identifying the overarching goal of this new funding opportunity announcement and summarizing what information applicants should describe, discuss and propose in their applications.

Following that we lay out and discuss six specific program priority areas that we provide applicants to pay particular attention to when describing your proposed approaches for advancing your state lifespan respite systems of care. So rather than just read through the list of six items I’m going to move on to the top of page 8 of 51 and discuss each one of the items involved as we go through the pages.

The first program priority area is direct service provision that incorporates lessons learned from the COVID-19 - the current COVID-19 pandemic where appropriate. The Act does stipulate five required and three optional services that should be - to be provided. Be sure to clearly and completely describe your plan for further developing and delivering each of the required services and when applicable the optional services.

Be sure to consider available evidence of best practices, emerging strategies or promising practices as you consider how to expand your capacity to deliver these services. And despite the increasing vaccination numbers and (unintelligible) the pandemic is ongoing. We anticipate it will continue to impact states’ ability to provide respite and/or affect people’s comfort level in receiving respite services.

Here’s where we indicate that applicants should view this as an opportunity to modify or further adapt your respite program through responses to providing services under any circumstances and based on lessons learned from this pandemic we encourage -- we’re not requiring you -- to consider other forms or means of service delivery.

Next at the very bottom of page 8 of 51 -- item 2 -- continues to sum development. So this priority we expect you to describe in detail your objectives for systematically advancing your existing lifespan respite services across your state focusing on capacity building, leveraging resources, implementing key administrative functions and the ongoing monitoring and quality assurance of your respite service provision.

We do expect grantees to achieve tangible, measurable, and sustainable advancements in your state’s capacity to provide respite and related services across the age and disability spectrum.

However you are encouraged to propose a range of approaches to ensure sustainability of your project once federal funding ends.

We further note that applications will be evaluated in part of the extent to which proposals communicate a plan for the project’s sustainability beyond the period for federal funding for these grants which would be in 2025 because they’ll be five-year grants. A resource tool from the National Respite Network and the Lifespan Respite Technological Assistance and TA center is provided to assist you in terms of tools and ideas for sustainability of programs. It’s the wild apricot dot org link.

The third priority area is on page 9 of 51 is strengthen collaborations and partnerships which are critical to a successful statewide program. Applicants, grantees should collaborate with the broadest array of stakeholders possible to ensure the needs of family caregivers are met. You’ll note we state in the second paragraph - again the second paragraph applicants funded under this funding opportunity must propose approaches for expanding collaboration and partnerships with relevant stakeholders to ensure the program reaches the broadest population of eligible service recipients.

So note the list of four types of potential stakeholders from page 9 on to page 10 of 51. I want to stress that you can add or expand. This is not a comprehensive list but rather provided for sample example purposes. And then finally at the end of this section you’ll see the standard requirements for the memorandum of agreement that is required with all applications for lifespan respite program grant funding as stated in the Act.

You’ll see the word important written in all caps and bold. We did this to draw attention and the memorandum of agreement is required as part of every application package. When drafting the memorandum of agreement I encourage you to write it so it’ll allow flexibility to all the parties so as your project unfolds because inevitably some things work better than others and we have to make adaptations. And that’s okay, that’s part of the learning and growing process.

But building flexibility, so for example if you saw specific roles and responsibilities for each of the organizations or groups or all the responsible parties in the memorandum of agreement make sure you include a clause that allows for modification by any other party.

Moving on to item 4 on page 10 of 51, pay and volunteer respite provider training. Here we want applicants to explain how they will ensure adequate resource availability of respite providers whether their paid or volunteers, how you will work to expand or strengthen respite care workforce including discussing recruitment, training and oversight with particular emphasis on cultural competency, quality and service delivery.

Describe how quality and safety of the respite care services will be monitored including methods to include that respite care workers and volunteers are appropriately screened and possess the necessary skills to care for the needs of the particular care recipient. Moving on to the bottom half of page 10 of 51, number 5, identification and reduction of gaps in current services.

Here we want you to let us know the state of your current system of respite services, which will lead you to identify and explain in your application known gaps in your current respite system of care which will result in your proposing how you will address the stated gaps in the respite services.

Number 6 which starts on page 10 and lulls on over to -- I just enlarged my screen too much --rolls on to page 11 of 51. Targeted underserved population across the lifespan with a particular emphasis on addressing those most impacted by COVID-19.

As stated given what we know about what is proportionate impact the Coronavirus has had on traditionally underserved populations we expect you to explain your current efforts and results to provide respite to underserved populations which we do define for you. Once you’ve provided the background piece then we want you to explain how you propose to increase services to underserved populations you have identified in your state and local community.

Well this ends the program priority section of the funding announcement. And now we move on to a new subsection called additional application elements which is - starts on page 11 and ends on page 12 of 51. This subsection lays out four specific items all in bold font that applicants should clearly address in your application.

The first is programmatic performance and outcome measurements. Here you want to identify relevant consumer-based programmatic and system-level outcomes in your state that you would like to measure as well as your proposed outcomes for these data measures. You’ll want us -you’ll need to describe how you will count and record the experiences of people being served as well as the impact of the statewide lifespan respite care system on consumers, their families, and employers.

Also in your application be sure to describe how this information will be collected and presented.

Please note there is currently no standard data reporting requirement to Lifespan Respite Care Program grantees. However in the Lifespan Respite Reauthorization Act of 2020 section 2904 of the Lifespan Respite Act - Care Act was modified to include the fact that ACL will be required to implement data collection and reporting requirements.

Therefore once we have developed those applicants who are awarded new grants under this funding opportunity announcement should expect reporting requirements to change over the course of the five-year projects. Grantees awarded under this announcement will further be expected to comply with any data collection or reporting requirements that are implemented over the five-year project period.

The next section is products at the bottom of page 11 of 51. Going into the top, we just ask that grantees share their products with ACL and with the Lifespan Respite TA Center. So we may assist other states seeking guidance and direction and to facilitate their ability to replicate programs and approaches designed by others that gives those in your state. In the next section on page 12 of 51 is participation and technical assistance efforts.

In this section we note that will expect grantees to participate in Lifespan Respite Technical Assistance, TA related activities. This could include conference calls, webinars. It could also include one-on-one technical assistance with me or Sara with the project officers as well as working with Lifespan Respite TA and Resource Center run by ARCH.

Equally important for technical assistance participation is the second part which we strongly encourage. We cannot require the way we strongly encourage state grantees to budget resources and time to attend the annual national respite conference held by ARCH every summer because it’s a great opportunity to learn from your peers and get on the ground floor for some technical assistance and I was there last year.

It was my first national conference and it was just phenomenal. So should you be awarded a grant I believe this year’s conference will be virtual and held in mid-July. And the final section under other program activities is grants and subcontracts. Of course the successful applicants may carry out required activities directly or through grants or subcontracts with public or private entities.

If you’ll be issuing grants or subcontracts please make sure you clearly describe the specific activities for which these grants or subcontracts will be issued in your application. And in this -also in this section under grants and subcontracts we add a reminder that not only should we talk about the nature of the work by subgrantees or subcontractors. We should - a reminder to clearly to describe the role of the state project director, the project director from the eligible state agency who’s applying as well as the role of the stakeholder groups as they relate to the design and implementation of your statewide respite system.

Moving on down to the bottom of page 12 of 51 we have the statutory authority for this program which is immediately followed by section 2, forward information. And although it doesn’t state in the funding opportunity announcement this year Congress appropriated $7.1 million for the Lifespan Respite Care Act Program. That’s a million more dollars than last year and 3 million more dollars than 2 years ago so that’s pretty exciting.

So in this section you’ll see that we’ve allocated just under $2 million for the state program enhancement grants. This is how much of the $7.1 million we have available after allocating funds for continuation grants, grants of new states and administrative costs associated with grants management. That’s just for this year.

To this funding opportunity announcement we anticipate again funding approximately 8 new awards with a maximum award amount, the maximum of federal funds you can request which is referred to as the award ceiling of $275.000 per year for each of five - of the five years - five years of the project. And a minimum award amount which is referred to as the - next page, 12, 13 of 51, award floor of $100,000 per year for each year of the five-year project.

I say we planned to fund approximately eight new cooperative agreements but the final number of awards will be dependent on how much each applicant actually requests because that’s quite a range between the ceiling and the floor and different states often come (unintelligible) something in between. But I also - I want to note under the length of the project period on page 13 of 51, again 60 months, five-year project period with 5 12-month budget periods. That means you’re going to see federal funding each year for five years. That will cover one year of grant work.

The paragraph immediately following the award amount information here at the top of page 13 of 51, this clearly states that due to the considerable need for respite across the country and to ensure robust expanding programs we expect applicants must request - must request a minimum of $100,000 to ensure they have their sufficient funding to bridge gaps in existing services.

So the award ceiling is the most you can request the award for. It’s the least, the minimum you can request. The next paragraph that the number of awards issued under this funding opportunity announcement could actually be impacted by the number of awards that are made under the grants of new states plus funding opportunity announcement and vice versa.

So depending on if we get fewer here and more there, a fewer there and more here we have flexibility across the program to make sure that all of the Lifespan Respite Program can serve -are allocated to help get respite into as many states as possible.

During the course of the application review we may come back to applicants to negotiate the size of your actual award. Keep in mind we can never award more than you ask for but we can however award less than your request based on the scope of work you propose relative to funds you request and the funds that are available.

Sometimes it’s a little rounding. So just keep this in mind as you develop your work plan and budgets for your five-year projects. Be as precise as possible and that will be very helpful. And finally please note on the bottom of page 13 of 51 we indicate that states not currently receiving funding meaning that will not receive continuation funding this year will be given priority consideration when funding decisions are made.

Like past years these new awards will be cooperative agreements which are - is referenced at the beginning of section 2, award information -- oops, sorry -- which is referenced at the beginning of - which is referenced in section 2, award information. But off the top of page 14 of 51 we lay out the exact terms and conditions of the cooperative agreements.

So as cooperative agreements AOA has a more active and collaborative relationship with each awardee throughout the life of the projects. As the projects get underway Sara or I will work with each new grantee to devise a communication plan for regularly scheduled conference calls, for technical assistance, updates and general programmatic discussions.

It also lays out the items that the grantee will be expected to carry through - carry throughout the life of the project. And so please review them so you’re aware of the expectations of our role as well as your role in this collaborative arrangement with the cooperative agreement. And then just please note the last item in the terms and conditions under the grantee section provides standard language that all grantees must - are expected to - require to add to any materials produced with federal funds.

Moving on to section 3, eligibility information which really starts at the top of page 15 of 51 --hold on -- with subsection 3.1 eligible applicants. Please be sure you read and understand these requirements. Later when I talk a bit more about the training application responsiveness criteria before we send them to the review panels, you’ll note this is one of the first thing that will be looked at whether or not the applicant meets the eligibility requirement as specified in the statute which is the first bullet exactly stated in section 3.1, eligible applicants.

Continuing on another important issue for applicants is match. By statute based on the Act cost sharing or match is 25%. It can be cash or in kind. Congress has not permitted waivers to the match requirement. Therefore, we cannot either. As with most federal grants match must be from non-federal sources.

Cash match can come from non-federal funds such as cash contributions from individuals or organizations. In-kind contributions are non-federal third party non-cash contributions made directly to the grant project and could include things like donated time, real or non-expendable property or goods and services. Detailed instructions for calculating match are in attachment A of the announcement.

And I want to point out on page 16 of 51 in bold ACL discourages you from exceeding the minimum match requirement. You will not get a better score from the reviewers if you over match. However you will be required to meet that match requirement if you over match. So the match percentage is 25% which is 70 - basically 25% of the project’s total cost and that is adequate. If you have additional funds you can still use them but you do not need to over match on your application.

Section 3.3, responsiveness and screening criteria in the middle of page 16 of 51, please be sure your application addresses the responsiveness and screening criteria. We do screen each application internally to ensure that both of these screening criteria are met before we make any application score to the reviewers. Failure of any applicant to comply with either responsiveness or eligibility screening criteria will result in that application’s elimination from further review for consideration of funding.

The responsiveness criteria include two criteria taken directly from the Act. Applicants must meet the eligibility criteria again as outlined in section 3 as I pointed out earlier which is defined in the Act and a memorandum of agreement or here we wrote MOU between the eligible state agency and the statewide respite coalition or organization must be included with your application.

If either or both of these two responsiveness criteria are not met the application will not be reviewed so be sure to incorporate these into your application. The application screening criteria are more technical in nature. It’s standard on every ACL funding opportunity announcement but again if your application misses any of these technical screening eligibility criteria your application will be - will not be reviewed.

There is one teeny exception. If all of the other criteria meaning responsiveness and application screening criteria are met but your project narrative is longer than 30 pages what we will do is take the first 30 pages of your application narrative and forward those to the reviewer. So if you write a proposal that’s longer than 30 pages, the reviewers will only review the first 30 pages.

And again that’s assuming all of the other criteria have been met so no more than 30 pages.

Beginning at the top of page 17 of 51 is section 4, application and submission information. I believe all of you have received funding from ACL before. I presume you’re familiar with grants.gov where all application materials can be obtained. So I’m just going to move right on to section 4, part 2, content and form of application submission which is at the top of page 19 of 51.

You’ll note that we again provided a due date federal letter of intent and as I said earlier they’re not required but we do appreciate them. And again it does not mean you are committing to submitting an application. It just helps us with the review panel planning. And the final subsection in section 4 which begins in the middle of page 19 and goes through page 25 of 51 provides you with critical information on structuring your project narrative.

Remember that the project narrative is the heart of your application. This is where you tell your story and lay out your project. This is your opportunity to tell reviewers what you will do, what you have done and what the primary means with your application scores are based. So again remember only 30 pages in which to do this. So planning and careful writing is the key.

We’ll be using outside review panels to review and score the applications. So the narrative is how you will describe the status of your program and systems to date, outline your vision for transforming or strengthening your respite care system and detail your plan for achieving your vision. Please note there’s a list of ten items that make up the project narrative at the top of page 20 of 51 but I want to focus on just a few of the specific sections within the project narrative in which we’ve added additional language that is specific to this program and beyond the standard ACL language.

The first item I want to draw your attention to is the problem statement. The bulleted items listed here are taken directly from the Lifespan Respite Care Act. By law applicants are required to address all of these elements. Again please note these bulleted items under problem statement which will also help you I hope in writing your project narrative and things we’ll be looking for under the problem statement.

The next section I want to talk about is post interventions near the top of page 21 of 51. It looks rather long but we wanted to lay out this information so you have a good clear sense of what we are asking the reviewers to look for and what we are expecting to see in your applications.

Next please note the special target populations and organizations section on page 22 of 51. In particular the last sentence in that section states that applicants will describe how they will use grant funds to address newly identified or existing unmet respite needs of traditionally underserved populations, families that are historically more isolated and as we know from the pandemic is more apt to be less served - well served.

In the latter part of the outcome section specifically I mean the reminder on page 23 of 51 where it says as a reminder, a reminder that applicants should identify relevant outcomes that they will measure - the states will measure and the proposed approach to tracking people served as well as an impact on consumers of the provided respite services.

Then please note that in the project management section we stress the importance of the state project director maintaining an active role in the management of this project. Applications that propose to pass all the funding through to another agency to leave the project will not be recommended for funding.

Midway down to page 24 of 51 is information on the budget narrative or justification as well as the work - required work plan. Please be aware that since these projects will receive federal funding each year for five years you must include a budget justification and work plan for each individual project year as well as the consolidated budget and work plan for the entire five-year period.

Also you may have noticed in each of these sections under both of these sections we have written in bold font. Failure to include either of these items, the budget narrative, justification, or work plan will result in a score of 0 by the objective reviewers for that specific review criteria. More on that again real soon.

Now on page 25 of 51 section 3.3, submission dates and times, again applications are due no later than 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, May 21. Friday? On May 21.

This section, submission dates and times, provides details on requirements for submitting your application to grants.gov as well as information about what you do if you have technical issues when you’re submitting your application package. So please note if you wait until the last minute to submit your application and you cannot submit your application on time because of issues of your making, ACL will not consider your application for review.

Now we’ll move to page 27 of 51, funding restrictions. These are not negotiable but rather are required by law. Then note in section 3 part 6 (other) submission requirements, we once again address the requirement for the memorandum of agreement as part of the application package.

You’ll recall this is a responsiveness criteria and really want to be sure we want to include this.

Then we move on to the beginning of 28 of 51, section 5, application review information. This goes all the way through page 33 of 51. Each of the criteria listed in section 5 part 1 which are project relevance and current need, approach, budget, project impact, and organizational capacity have a maximum number of scoring points.

It’s in this section really (unintelligible) that criteria against which your applications will be scored. In other words the scoring forms used by the reviewers will ask them to look for each of the listed elements on the - in these sections in your applications.

My suggestion is that you read and make sure your applications - read through all of these.

Make sure your applications answer each of the questions (unintelligible) under each of the five sections or subsections of the application review criteria. You might even want to make a little check box but keep in mind these are the only criteria against which reviewers will score your application.

As I said within the sections are subsections which may indicate the break out of points for how they work. The first sample in the approach section on page 29 of 51, the entire section is worth a maximum of 30 points. However there are three subsections that add up to the section total.

Goals and objectives, methods, et cetera is worth 5 points. The work plan is worth 15 points.

Again note right here we will give this to the reviewers. If you do not include a five-year work plan you will receive 0 - no points, 0 points for that entire workplan subsection and you will lose 15 possible points. And then coordination and linkages is worth 5 points. So not all the sections have sub-point sections but just something to be aware of with identified. When they are subsections we’ve given the breakdown of that.

Then on page 32 of page 51 after all the review criteria questions we’ve come to section 5, part 2, review and selection process in which we give you an overview of the review and selection process will take place after you submit your application.

So after the May 21 application deadline, applications are usually made available to the reviewers within approximately 7 days depending on the number of applications we receive and the number of review panels we have to convene.

Reviewers generally have about 10 to 14 days to review multiple applications. In general I’m anticipating convening the review panels in mid-June with the goal of award notifications going out to successful applicants by the July 1 start date. We (unintelligible) copy out before.

Moving on to pages 33 and 34 of 51 (unintelligible) section 6, award administration information.

This contains explanations of award notices, administrative and national policy requirements as well as reporting requirements, first reports, financial reports, subaward reporting.

And then immediately after that, section 7, agency contact includes my contact information again I think for the third or fourth time as well as that of Sherlonda Blue who as I mentioned at the beginning is our grants management specialist. And finally beginning on page 35 of the 51 page PF document, through the end of the announcement is section 8 titled other information.

This section incorporates other elements of the application, provides sample templates of items such as the budget justification and award plans that are required attachments to each application. We have templates for the work plan, the budget narrative, instructions on completing the standard federal forms and et cetera, the summary abstract and et cetera in the back of the application.

I’d like to point out that the templates we provide are for sample purposes. We provide one that’s completed with information to understand the level of detail we’re working for and we provide a blank version. You’re welcome to use these templates or if you have something else you prefer to use that is perfectly acceptable too. You are not required to use the templates that we share in the funding announcements.

And this I think concludes my portion of the call. Sherlonda, Greg, Sara, do you have anything you’d like to add?

Greg Link: No, I don’t. Thank you.

Sherlonda Blue: This is Sherlonda. I don’t have anything.

Sara Vogler: Me either, thank you.

Lori Stalbaum:

Okay, great. Thanks guys. So I guess we’ll open up the lines for questions. I don’t - we don’t really have a system so if you have a question just feel free to speak up and don’t forget to unmute these calls with star 6 unless you have a mute button on your phone. But welcome any and all questions at this point. Jump right in.

Nick Nyberg:

Hey, this is Nick Nyberg in Alabama. When you’re going through the guidance there was the also bolded and I know very important about the MOA and then also it says MOU. Just one or the other or - I know they’re probably essentially the same thing. Maybe one’s a little detailed -more detailed than the other but just needed some clarification on that.

Lori Stalbaum:

Absolutely, Nick. Thanks for asking because I noticed when I got to the responsiveness criteria (unintelligible) put MOU. They’re the same. The Act - the Lifespan Respite Act refers to memorandum of agreement, MOA which is I think actually - gives a little bit more flexibility.

MOU is basically a typo but they are - from our perspective they’re interchangeable. In the real world a memorandum of understanding may be a little more binding than a memorandum of agreement but when we refer to memorandum - when we say MOA or MOU we’re referring to the same thing on the information we provide for the outlined, you know, the flexibility that I talked about and all those other things.

Lori Stalbaum:

Thank you Nick, great question. Anyone else? Love to hear from you. No? This is Lori and I will say that you have my email address all over the place and I am happy to answer questions after this call has ended if they are related to a business - the grant side of things. I will share them with Sherlonda because we do - we work very closely together which is such a wonderful thing. Sara, Sherlonda and I.

I encourage questions but if no one has any questions I don’t want to keep you all on the line.

But I do want to let you know we are available should you have questions as you proceed, and that this is not your only opportunity.

Woman:

Hi it’s Deana, from New York. We did just think of another question that I was hoping to ask.

Does the amount applying for need to be the same for each of the five years?

Lori Stalbaum:

No. The amount you can apply for, the maximum - from our perspective the maximum is always $275,000. The minimum is always $100,000 but I understand your point because sometimes when things - in early years it may be a little less since you’re, you know, bringing people on or a little more. And actually I think that’s good project planning if it’s just flat across all the years.

You just have to stay within the floor and the ceiling but you could ask for say, $200,000 in your first year and $220, $215 in your second year and work your way up to $275,000, if that’s how you wanted to do it or the other way around.

That’s an excellent question. Thank you. I have two minutes left or - well, I’ll stay here all day if you all have any kind of questions but I don’t want to keep you either.

Last call. If there are no other questions at this time I would like to thank everyone for joining us.

I want to thank Sherlonda, Greg and Sara for being with me on the call in case their specific expertise was needed to assist me.

We do work as a team and I’m grateful for that. I look forward to any questions that may come up later and we’ll do our best to respond as quickly and not accurately. There are some questions we can’t answer and we’ll tell you that and if they get too specific. Can I do this? I can’t tell you that. You have to decide. But if you have questions about anything write to me.

There’s no question too small, no question too basic, no question too big. And I hope everyone has a great day and I hope everyone is well and healthy, and having a beautiful sunshiny day like we are here in D.C. Thank you everyone, appreciate your time. Bye.

END