Independence and integration through disabilities funding

The Foundation supports organizations and programs that respect the independence, individual choice, and civil rights of children and adults with intellectual, physical, and sensory disabilities as necessary preconditions for a good life. The Foundation wants to support innovative services and support systems designed to enable people with multiple disabilities to live a life of their own choosing in the community—not in segregated, institutional, or congregate settings with low expectations.

A life of their own choosing means achieving independence, self-respect, and self-satisfaction at school, home, and work to the greatest degree possible. The Foundation wants to encourage people without disabilities to have personal experiences with people who have disabilities to extinguish fear, stereotypes, and misconceptions. The Foundation seeks programs designed to build relationships and to prevent loneliness and isolation.

Geographic focus

Intellectual Disabilities

• The Foundation will consider requests throughout the United States and Israel
• First priority given to community-based, direct-services providers in Maryland, northeastern Pennsylvania, Hawaii, and Israel
• Applicants outside priority areas will be given consideration for ongoing, innovative programs which can be replicated

Physical and Sensory Disabilities

• The Foundation will consider requests from community-based, direct-services providers only in the Foundation’s “hometowns” of Maryland, northeastern Pennsylvania, Hawaii, and Israel

Goals/Questions:

 

If you are seeking a grant, can you answer “yes” to these questions? (Not all questions are applicable to all organizations) 

1. Do the people you serve own or rent their own home in the community or does your agency? Do they pick with whom they want to live?
2. Do the people you serve have authority over their own funding and how it’s spent? Do they save and spend their own money?
3. Does the person you serve have other people in their lives (friends and acquaintances)in addition to paid staff and family?
4. Do the people you serve have jobs? What kinds of jobs? Do they get their own paycheck from their jobs?
5. Do the people you serve participate in activities in their community that are not related to any disability organization?
6. Do you help the people you serve receive individualized services and supports? Do you help them learn to do things for themselves?
7. Do you help your people use adaptive technology such as assistive communication devices or tele-monitoring in homes?

Please expand and explain your answers to relevant questions as part of your Letter of Inquiry (LOI).

The Foundation funds five groups of children and adults (all ages) with disabilities:

1. Intellectual disabilities, including the broad range of autism spectrum disorders (Asperger’s disorder, Pervasive Developmental Disorder—Not Otherwise Specified, “classic” autism), mental retardation (all ages), epilepsy, cerebral palsy, various language delays, Down’s syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
2. Mental health (all ages, and ranging from emotional and behavior problems to severe mental illnesses). The treatment of co-occurring intellectual disabilities and mental health issues is also a priority for the Foundation.
3. Learning differences in children, especially math and English learning problems such as dyscalculia and dyslexia and early intervention designed to mainstream children as soon as possible. The Foundation has a funding preference for tutoring programs and learning centers for those with learning differences in Jewish Day Schools in Baltimore.
4. Physical disabilities: acquired and congenital
5. Sensory disabilities: deaf and blind

For the five groups of people mentioned above, the Foundation has several goals:

• Early intervention for children with physical, sensory, and intellectual disabilities, especially the autistic spectrum disorders (ages 0 to 5). Education is the treatment for autism, and the Foundation seeks early-education programs that show positive outcomes and use evidence-based methods. Education programs can be in segregated settings as long as the long-term goal is mainstreaming and integration. The Foundation does not fund public schools. To avoid indirect harm, the Foundation funds only evidence-based programs that have credentialed staff,low student/teacher ratios, and are tailored to the specific needs of individual children. Family involvement and home-based programs are also crucial in the Foundation’s grantmaking decisions.

• Community-based services for those with psychiatric illnesses: The Foundation funds psychiatric rehabilitation programs, mental health centers, jail and emergency-room diversion programs, mobile crisis teams, and “clubhouses.”

• Early intervention for children with learning differences via tutoring programs that are both pull-out and plug-in and have the goal of mainstreaming.

• Housing (capital grants for renovation and new construction): The Foundation funds safe, deeply affordable, accessible housing integrated into the community—both independent and supported housing, especially scattered-site projects and innovative, replicable models for increasing the availability of low-income housing, both rented and owned by a person with a disability.

• Jobs: The Foundation supports customized employment in the community, meaning that time is invested in the individual to determine the person’s abilities, interest, and willingness to work and only then to identify appropriate jobs. The Foundation does not want to support programs that find a job with an employer and then “place” the person in that slot. In other words, the Foundation supports projects that promote self-determination in employment—choice.

(Transitional-age youth 18 to 22)* who are leaving special education settings and want to work or volunteer instead of being confined to a residence or to a day center for the entire day.

The Foundation will also fund organizations that help develop businesses owned by adults with disabilities. The Foundation will fund training classes for adults with disabilities to find the right business for them, develop a business plan, and learn about start-up and financial issues.

• The Foundation’s Trustees will select two innovative, social-contentment programs annually. These will be integrated, socialization programs in the community so that typically developed people can spend time with people with disabilities—not in day centers but in libraries, gyms, residences, coffee houses, and community centers. Programs could include cooking or yoga classes, hiking clubs, inclusive summer camps, movie clubs, music and dance lessons, community service days, environmental clean-up days—wherever people with and without disabilities can meet. The challenge is not so much what we can do for those with disabilities as whether we can include them in our lives. If a summer camp provides sessions for children with any kind of disability—physical, or sensory, or intellectual—the camp is eligible for funding.

• Training of Professional Staff in Evidence-Based Treatment Methods: In terms of tutoring or therapy programs for those with learning or intellectual disabilities (especially autism), the Foundation will fund only evidence-based therapies that are supported by replicated and validated research such as Applied Behavior Analysis or the TEACCH program. Such therapies are driven by outcomes. Evidence-based methods are crucial because of the many unproven education and therapy methods, the fuddled quackery (chelation or cranial manipulation, for example), the disappointing outcomes, and the families hooked on hope. The focus is on training at service providers because the Foundation, by charter, cannot fund universities.

• Life Planning: The greatest worry for parents of those with disabilities is “what will happen to my son or daughter after I die?” The Foundation seeks projects that address life planning for the future, including the legal knowledge necessary to face an uncertain future. A life plan developed by attorneys, family members, the son or daughter, and service providers can offer some peace of mind for families, even if some of those services are not yet available in the community.

• Entitlement Demystifiers and Access to Entitlements: Families need the services of entitlement demystifiers and legal experts at Disability Law Centers and Legal Aid Bureaus, where families can have an advocate to represent them in acquiring needed services. The Foundation recognizes the importance of legal assistance in identifying and accessing entitlements such as Medicaid and helping parents with due process hearings and Individualized Education Plans (IEPs).

• Service Coordination and Navigation of the Disabilities System (Case Managers): To increase service coordination at the time of diagnosis for families and children with disabilities or mental illness by means of case management to identify quality providers of direct services and to disseminate information to parents.

• Assistive Technology as a treatment tool for those with intellectual, sensory, or physical disabilities such as robotic-assisted physical therapy for children with cerebral palsy, telemonitoring of homes, or augmentative communication devices. Durable medical equipment such as rehab equipment for the home and home modifications including ramps will not be funded.

For more information or if you have questions, please contact Stan Goldman, Program Director, Disabilities; sgoldman@hjweinberg.org or 410-654-8500, x263.