National Center on Leadership for Employment and Advancement of People with Disabilities (LEAD)

archived

Summary: The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL or the Department), Office of Disability Employment Policy (ODEP) announces the availability of approximately $1.1 million to fund one cooperative agreement to establish the Leadership for the Employment and Advancement of People with Disabilities (LEAD) national center. The Center will seek to improve employment outcomes and promote the economic advancement of people with disabilities by focusing on five strategic goal areas. First, the Center will stimulate and bring to scale innovative practices and solutions-oriented models focused on both sustainable systems change and improved practices at the individual level. Second, the Center will coordinate and provide state-of-the-art technical assistance, training and knowledge transfer capacity to workforce-related federal, state and local staff, grantees, subcontracting entities and external partners on evidence-based strategies and best practices. Third, the Center will translate emerging and successful solutions identified through demonstration projects and research focused on retention and return-to-work issues for individuals with disabilities, particularly mature workers. Fourth, the Center will assist ODEP in the development of policy by performing, upon request, rapid response to policy analysis and policy implementation questions. Finally, the Center will provide real-time accurate information related to disability employment and serve as a central locus and repository of information on best practices and successful employment strategies to both individual job seekers and the systems that assist them in securing, retaining, and advancing in employment. This cooperative agreement will be funded for one year with up to four optional years, pending acceptable performance and availability of funding. This solicitation provides background information, describes the application submission requirements, outlines the process that eligible entities must use to apply for funds covered by this solicitation, and outlines the evaluation criteria used as a basis for selecting the grantee.

High