The Social Security Administration solicits competition from educational, policy, or research institutions to manage the grant program and distribute the stipends to graduate students for innovative research relevant to rehabilitation, work, and the disability program.
Donor Name: Social Security Administration
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 08/10/2023
Size of the Grant: $450,000
Grant Duration: 5 years
Details:
The Social Security Administration (SSA) administers two programs that provide cash income to individuals who do not have or who have lost the ability to support themselves in the labor market due to one or more disabling conditions. These programs are the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program. The SSDI program provides cash and medical benefits to individuals with disabilities and their dependents. In 2019, SSDI provided benefits to approximately 9.9 million individuals with disabilities and their dependents. The SSI program provides payments and health insurance to low-income individuals who are blind or disabled. In 2019, SSI provided payments to approximately 8.1 million individuals.
SSA has a long history of seeking to assist disabled beneficiaries and recipients with habilitation and rehabilitation services so they may be able to engage in competitive employment in spite of their disability. This serves the dual purposes of increasing self-sufficiency of individual beneficiaries and reducing dependency on disability benefits.
There will be two components to this program:
- A program manager to manage the program and award stipends to individual graduate students, and
- The graduate students who will conduct research on these disability related issues. This solicitation is for an organization to perform program management duties. The objective of the program is to foster analysis of work, rehabilitation, and disability issues; cultivate new scholars in the field of disability research; and increase the recruitment and participation of students of color and underrepresented populations in the research areas of work, rehabilitation, and disability, for the purpose of fostering fresh and inclusive perspectives on disability research. To assist the graduate students, SSA will provide guidance on disability issues that might be fruitful areas for research.
Topic Areas
The disability program has operated since the 1950s and the nature of work over that period has changed as well. Work tasks, training for work performance, physical and mental demands of work, work hours and locations for performance of those tasks, terms of employment, employee consultant status, adaptive technology, legislative changes (e.g., Americans with Disability Act), job sharing initiatives, and the role of women in the labor force, have changed over this sixty-year period. Rehabilitation technology and methods, habilitation advances, governmental policy changes and a change in perceptions and expectations of workers and the general public suggest there is more support and resources available for persons with impairments to engage in economically productive activities.
Potential research areas of inquiry include but are not limited to:
- Programs promoting work force attachment
- Programs related to SSI/SSDI beneficiaries
- Barriers faced by people with disabilities
- Children and youth with disabilities
Funding Information
Annual funding for this grant is $450,000, which will include funding for the program manager and graduate student stipends of $15,000 each.
Period of Performance
Through this award is for a 5-year project, they will provide funding for this grant on a yearly basis.
Eligibility Criteria
Only organizations in the United States are eligible to apply. Eligible types of entities include:
- Research organizations;
- Universities;
- University Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDDs), Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities (LEND) programs, Eunice Kennedy Shriver Intellectual and Developmental Disability Research Centers (IDDRCs), and similar programs; and
- Associations of research organizations and universities.
Any applicant that currently receives other Federal funds must ensure that any awarded funds supplement rather than supplant existing funding.
- Minority Serving Institutions SSA relies on research to learn about the diverse people they serve, how they are affected by their programs, and ways in which their programs can be improved to better serve the public. As such, they recognize the importance of engaging with researchers who represent the diversity of the American public. For this reason, SSA strongly encourages all eligible applicants identified under the eligibility section of this announcement, including minority serving institutions (MSIs), to apply under this opportunity. For purposes of this solicitation, the following are considered MSIs:
- HBCUs, as defined by the Higher Education Act.
- Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), as defined by the Higher Education Act
- Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), as defined by the Higher Education Act
- Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions; (AANAPISIs), as defined by the Higher Education Act
- Predominately Black Institutions (PBIs), as defined by the Higher Education Act
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
