Initiatives

AUCD works on several major initiatives in partnership with Federal agencies. These include:

Children's SSI Initiative: From 1999-2008, AUCD operated the Children's SSI Initiative in collaboration with the SSA. In the first seven years the project included efforts to: conduct interdisciplinary assessments for infant, school age and age 18-disability claimants; implement collaborations with state Disability Determination Services; preparing and presenting training for adjudicators at all levels of the agency; and create tools and protocols for state agency decision makers. These efforts laid the groundwork for the most recent two-year Pediatric Medical Unit (PMU) initiative, which recently concluded its work to further SSA's efforts to improve the childhood disability determination process ensuring that the best decisions are made as efficiently and as early as possible for childhood disability adjudications.

AUCD-NCBDDD Cooperative Agreement: A collaborative initiative with the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to strengthen the nation’s capacity to carry out public health activities in the areas of primary and secondary prevention for birth defects and developmental disabilities, and health promotion for people with disabilities.

National Service Inclusion Project (NSIP): A partnership between the Institute for Community Inclusion at the University of Massachusetts-Boston, AUCD, and the Corporation for National Service to implement a comprehensive program of training, technical assistance, and dissemination designed to increase the participation of individuals with disabilities in National Service.