Traumatic Brain Injury State Partnership Program | HHS 2023 ACL AOD TBSG 0044

Opportunity Information: Apply for HHS 2023 ACL AOD TBSG 0044

The Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) State Partnership Program is a federal grant opportunity from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), administered by the Administration for Community Living (ACL) within the Administration on Disabilities (AOD). It is offered as a discretionary cooperative agreement (meaning the federal agency expects to stay actively involved with the awardee during implementation). The overall goal is to help a state build, strengthen, or expand a person-centered and culturally competent system of services and supports so that people living with TBI, across all ages, can maximize independence, health, and overall well-being. The program is explicitly designed to serve not only individuals with TBI, but also family members and other support networks who often play a major role in day-to-day stability, care coordination, and long-term recovery.

A central theme of the program is infrastructure building rather than direct short-term service delivery. The grant is meant to help states create durable systems that improve how people with TBI access information, supports, and coordinated services over time. ACL also emphasizes collaboration beyond a single state by building and maintaining an interstate community of practice. This includes participation in cross-state workgroups focused on specific TBI-related topics, with the intent of spreading effective approaches and increasing national impact through shared learning, alignment of strategies, and coordinated problem-solving on persistent gaps in TBI supports.

For the FY 2023 cycle, ACL indicates it is funding one state-level TBI State Partnership Program grant focused on developing or enhancing statewide infrastructure aligned with the program purpose. The published grant data lists an award ceiling of $200,000 and notes an expectation of two awards, but the narrative description highlights one award for this cycle; applicants should treat this as a competitive opportunity with limited awards and confirm specifics in the full notice. Applications were due June 5, 2023, submitted electronically by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. The assistance listing is CFDA 93.234, and the activity category is income security and social services, reflecting the program focus on long-term supports, navigation, and system coordination that affect stability and community living.

Eligible applicants include state governments as well as federally recognized Native American tribal governments and other Native American tribal organizations. In practical terms, this positions the program to support statewide or tribal/territorial infrastructure that can better organize resources, identify service gaps, and ensure that people with TBI can find and use supports in ways that reflect real-life needs, culture, language, and community context. The program prioritizes person-centered work, meaning the state is expected to design systems around the goals and preferences of people with TBI rather than forcing individuals to fit into rigid program structures.

Applicants must commit to several concrete requirements that shape how the grant operates. First, the award requires a 21 percent state match, meaning the recipient must contribute non-federal resources equal to that percentage of the federal award amount (as defined in the full notice and applicable cost principles). Second, the state must support a TBI Advisory Board with a person-centered focus, and within the first 12 months of the grant the board must include at least 50 percent representation by individuals with TBI. This requirement is meant to ensure that decisions are guided by lived experience rather than solely by agencies or providers, and that system-building efforts stay grounded in what actually helps people navigate housing, employment, health care, behavioral health supports, community participation, and other daily-life needs.

The grant also requires staffing capacity: the recipient must provide the equivalent of one full-time employee at the state or sub-awardee level. This reflects the expectation that the work will involve ongoing coordination, convening partners, managing planning activities, participating in interstate collaboration, and maintaining resource facilitation functions. Another core deliverable is a state TBI plan that is developed by and with individuals who have lived experience of TBI and with family members and support networks. That plan must clearly describe how the state assesses and serves all people with TBI, and it must place special emphasis on reaching diverse and underserved populations, addressing inequities in access, and ensuring that supports are culturally competent and responsive to community needs.

Finally, the program places specific emphasis on culturally competent resource facilitation practices. In this context, resource facilitation is about helping people with TBI and their families understand what services and supports exist, how to access them, and how different systems connect, whether those resources are at the state level or within local communities. The expectation is not simply to list programs, but to build practical, accessible pathways that educate and guide people through often-fragmented service landscapes. Taken together, the matching requirement, advisory board composition, staffing expectation, state planning deliverable, and resource facilitation focus reflect a grant aimed at long-term systems improvement, with accountability to people living with TBI and an emphasis on equity, inclusion, and real-world usability of supports.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Community Living in the income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Traumatic Brain Injury State Partnership Program" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.234.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 06, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 05, 2023 Electronically submitted applications must be submitted no later than 1159 p.m., ET, on the listed application due date.. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $200,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 2 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments).

Apply for HHS 2023 ACL AOD TBSG 0044

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