The Community Action Partnership is in the
2009 Combined Federal Campaign.
Our CFC number for designating donations is 80371.

NEWS YOU CAN USE
•	Funding Available - Federal Office of Community Services (OCS/ACF/HHS) Assets for Independence Grants-due date 1/15/10 5 Community Action Agencies among 24 new grantees
•	Sign up now for Partnership’s Sept. 21st webinar on Evidence-based Results It’s free!...and the info can strengthen your services
ISSUES & OPINIONS
•	Partnership supports increased funding, essential priorities for Women, Infants & Children (WIC) nutrition program
•	Partnership supports health care reform for legal immigrants
PARTNERSHIP NEWS
•	Partnership seeks input from you for revisions to Standards of Excellence
•	Partnership seeks director of training & technical assistance Only hard workers with experience & commitment need apply

Assets for Independence Now Accepting Grant Applications!

The Assets for Independence Demonstration Project (AFI) is pleased to announce the recent award of over $4.5 million to 24 AFI project grants. These AFI projects will provide Individual Development Accounts (IDAs)—special matched savings accounts—to low-income individuals and their families across the country. Read more about this recent announcement and other AFI news on the AFI Resource Center newsletter at: http://www.graphicmail.com/new/viewnewsletter2.aspx?SiteID=29541&SID=0&NewsletterID=474243.

The AFI Program is now accepting applications for asset-building programs nationwide. The next AFI grant application deadline is Friday, January 15, 2010.

If your organization is interested in applying for an AFI grant, please contact the AFI Resource Center at: info@idaresources.org or (877) 778-6037. We provide technical assistance to eligible applications and guide you through the application process and program design.

Additional information on the AFI program, including guidance, policies, and procedures, can be found at: www.acf.hhs.gov/assetbuilding/.

AFI Resource Center | Office of Community Services | www.acf.hhs.gov/assetbuilding
1-866-778-6037 | info@idaresources.org

 

Free Webinar
Using Evidence-Based Results to Prove the Value of Community Action
September 21, 2009
2:00 - 3:00 pm EDT
Click here to register for the webinar

The Community Action Partnership, in cooperation with Virtual CAP, is pleased to offer a webinar on Using Evidence-Based Results to Prove the Value of Community Action. This session will feature Renée Buchy, Social Service Director, Community Action Commission, Harrisburg, PA and Dr. Barbara Mooney, Training Director, Community Action Association of Pennsylvania. They will offer tips to CAAs about ways to use evidence to identify results and tailor programs to improve effectiveness.

The concept of evidence-based results is gaining respect in both for-profit and non-profit arenas, and can provide guidance to CAAs as we “tell our story.” The webinar will feature:

• a brief overview of evidence-based concepts
• three examples of evidence used to support identification of results in a local CAA in Pennsylvania.

Following the webinar, participants will have an opportunity to submit other examples of evidence used in their agencies, so that our network can appreciate the variety of evidence available to describe CAA results.

This webinar is made possible through a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Community Services.

For more information about the webinar, contact the Partnership at 202-265-7546.

Thanks to Tae Chong and our great colleagues at the National WIC Association, the Partnership signed on to the letter (below) to Senate and House leaders that requests $7.552 billion for WIC funding in Fiscal Year 2010 and recommends program improvements and new priorities. WIC, as we all know, is very valuable to the low-income mothers and families it serves.

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1 September 2009

The Hon. Daniel K. Inouye, Chair
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The Hon. Thad S. Cochran, Ranking
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The Hon. Herbert H. Kohl, Chair
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural
Development, FDA, & Related Agencies
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The Hon. Sam Brownback, Ranking
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural
Development, FDA & Related Agencies
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The Hon. David R. Obey, Chair
Committee on Appropriations
US House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

The Hon. Jerry Lewis, Ranking
Committee on Appropriations
US House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

The Hon. Rosa DeLauro, Chair
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural
Development, FDA, & Related Agencies
US House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

The Hon. Jack Kingston, Ranking
Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural
Development, FDA, & Related Agencies
US House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Dear Chairs Inouye, Obey, Kohl, and DeLauro and Ranking Members Cochran, Lewis, Brownback, and Kingston:

We are grateful for your support of the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants & Children (WIC) and the vulnerable mothers and young children who turn to WIC for nutritious foods, nutrition education, breastfeeding support and promotion, health care referrals and other essential social service referrals in times of economic uncertainty.

We thank the Senate in S. 1406 for providing $7.552 billion and the House in H.R. 2997 for providing $7.541 billion in the Fiscal Year 2010 Agriculture Appropriations bills to carry out the mission of the WIC Program. As you meet in Conference to resolve the differences between the two bills, we urge you to fund WIC at the Senate’s $7.552 billion funding level.

In addition, we urge you to include in the final Conference Agreement the following essential WIC priorities:

• $80 million for the successful breastfeeding peer counseling program to support mothers in their decision to breastfeed – the healthiest and best choice for infant feeding. Peer counseling is an established, effective method of assisting mothers to improve breastfeeding initiation and duration rates. Currently, peer counselors are available in approximately one in four WIC clinics. The additional funds would help to support peer counselors at all WIC clinics;

• $60 million for management information systems (MIS) support to update systems and move states toward implementation of electronic benefit transfer (EBT) service delivery systems. The ARRA funds for MIS improvements are a one-time down-payment allowing state agencies to establish, improve or administer MIS systems, including changes necessary to meet new legislative or regulatory requirements and to jump-start the transition to EBT for a handful of state agencies. This additional investment in MIS would help to build on that down-payment by allowing more states to update aged systems and render them EBT ready. This investment will pay off for years to come in improved customer service, program management and integrity, and oversight of federal funds.

• $100 million to increase the value of fruit and vegetable vouchers in the WIC food packages up to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommendation. The IOM recommended that families at all income levels provide more fruits and vegetables to their children in ways that build healthy eating patterns. To help low-income families accomplish this goal, the IOM recommended that food packages include cash-value vouchers for $8 per month for children and $10 per month for all women. The USDA Interim Final Rule allows for only $6 per month for children, $8 per month for women, and $10 per month for breastfeeding women;

• $70 million to include fat-reduced yogurt as a milk substitution in the WIC food packages as recommended by the Institute of Medicine. The inclusion of fat-reduced yoghurt in the IOM recommendations was to respond to current dietary guidance calling for reductions in foods that are high in saturated fat and to provide a wider variety of foods increasing the appeal to the diverse populations WIC serves;

• $10 million for state breastfeeding performance bonuses to reward states that achieve high breastfeeding initiation and duration rates and create incentives for improvement in states with lower rates. Currently, the WIC program tracks breastfeeding rates but does not publicly recognize achievements or improvements. By encouraging higher breastfeeding initiation rates and longer duration rates, this small investment in performance bonuses could achieve greater savings in health care dollars; and

• $5 million to support updated rigorous health outcomes research and evaluation. Numerous studies document WIC’s successes, yet many of those studies are decades old. It is critical that WIC have the tools to document continued successes as we implement the new WIC food packages as well as provide current guidance to policy makers to assist in making appropriate Program adjustments.

We thank each of you for your leadership in shaping the Fiscal Year 2010 Agriculture Appropriations legislation to support the nutrition needs of mothers and young children and for your consideration of these critical WIC priorities.

Sincerely,

Americans for Democratic Action
American Dietetic Association
Be Active New York State
Bread for the World
California Association of Nutrition & Activity Programs
California Breastfeeding Coalition
California Center for Public Health Advocacy
California Food Policy Advocates
California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
California WIC Association
Center for Science in the Public Interest
Coalition on Human Needs
Community Action Partnership
Community Health Partnership: Oregon’s Public Health Institute
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Every Child Matters Education Fund
First Focus
Hunter College in the City University of New York
Institute of Social Medicine and Community Health
Jewish Council for Public Affairs

At our June, 2009 board meeting in Philadelphia, the Partnership’s board of directors asked President & CEO Don Mathis to look for advocacy opportunities for health care reform and protections for legal immigrants that the Partnership could support. Thanks to Bill Daley from the Northwest Federation of Community Organizations and our colleagues at the National Immigration Law Center, the Partnership signed on to the letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

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September 14, 2009

Speaker Nancy Pelosi
United States House of Representatives
H-232 Capitol Building
Washington, DC 20515

Re: Immigrant Inclusion in Health Reform

Dear Speaker Pelosi:

Thank you for all of your efforts to achieve the critical reforms needed in health care.

We know it is an enormous undertaking and appreciate all of the work that you have done to fix our nation’s broken health care system. We share your goal of expanding the number of individuals who have quality, affordable
health insurance and reducing the number of uninsured in America. We believe that health reform should benefit everyone in America, and that is should create a truly inclusive and accessible health care system in which no one is left out. Many immigrants are denied access to health care coverage in the current system. As a new system is
developed to make health care coverage accessible and affordable for everyone, immigrants should be fully included.

We would like to thank you for your efforts to ensure legal immigrants have equitable access to subsidies to purchase insurance under HR 3200. We believe that it is critical legal immigrants are treated the same way as citizens under health reform and that this important provision must be maintained through final passage.

We are disappointed that HR 3200 does not eliminate the inequitable treatment of very low income legal permanent residents in Medicaid. Under HR 3200, legal permanent residents will continue to be subject to a five year waiting period before they can access Medicaid. The current waiting period in Medicaid is particularly unfair because the immigrants subject to the waiting period pay the exact same taxes as citizens. Earlier this year, Congress eliminated the 5-year waiting period that prevented legal immigrant children from having affordable health care in the Children’s Health Insurance Program
(CHIP). We urge you to take the next steps in restoring fairness by mandating the inclusion of legal immigrants, including children and adults, so that Medicaid is available to all legal immigrants on the same basis as citizens. This is an issue of fundamental fairness, and voters across the political spectrum strongly support allowing legal immigrants to use the programs their taxes pay for.

We also urge you to make all immigrant children and pregnant women, without regard to their immigration status, eligible for Medicaid on the same basis as citizens. This is not only the right thing to do, it will save money over time by ensuring these residents have access to preventive care and rely less on expensive emergency room care.Universal
coverage should include our most vulnerable. All Americans deserve health care they can afford. We simply cannot afford halfmeasures and unfair exclusions in health reform that leave out millions of Americans.

The following organizations urge you to take these actions to ensure we are achieving truly responsible health reform that does no harm.

Sincerely,

Regional/National
Community Catalyst
Northeast Action
Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities Coalition
Northwest Federation of Community Organizations
Campaign for Community Change
Gamaliel Foundation
Fair Immigration Reform Movement
Service Employees International Union
National Immigration Law Center
National Korean American Service and Education Consortium (NAKASEC)
National Council of La Raza
National Health Law Program
One America
Consejo de Federaciones Mexicanas en Norteamérica (COFEM)
Coalition on Human Needs
ACORN
American Academy of Nursing
American College of Nurse-Midwives
American Federation of Government
Employees Local 3937, AFL-CIO
American Psychological Association
Asian & Pacific Islander American
Health Forum
Association of Asian Pacific Community Health Organizations
Association of the Clinicians for the Underserved
Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs
Association of Reproductive Health Professionals
Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good
Center for Reproductive Rights
Children’s Defense Fund
Children's Health Fund
Coalition for Asian American Children & Families
Community Action Partnership
Commissioned Officers Association of the U.S. Public Health Service
Council on Social Work Education
Families USA
First Focus
Friends Committee on National Legislation
General Commission on Religion and Race, The United Methodist Church
Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights
HIV Medicine Association
Hmong National Development, Inc.
Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research
Japanese American Citizens League (JACL)
Laotian American National Alliance
League of United Latin American Citizens
Little Sisters of the Assumption U.S.A. Province
Main Street Alliance
Maternity Care Coalition
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

PARTNERSHIP SEEKS INPUT FROM YOU FOR
REVISIONS TO STANDARDS OF EXCELLENCE

The Partnership's Standards of Excellence reflect Community Action Agencies' very best practices. Among these practices is the concept of continuous improvement. In that spirit, the Partnership strives to keep the standards current and reflective of state of the art approaches to excellence. If you have suggestions for changes in the current standards, click here to review/download, please submit them to Don Mathis, President/CEO at dmathis@communityactionpartnership.com. He will make your suggestions available to the Partnership Board's Award/Excellence Commission for evaluation and determination of the changes to be made in the Standards.

Please submit your changes in the following format. Number and Name of the Standard -suggested change - rationale for the change. For example:

3.2 Customer/Constituent Feedback System Under and agency wide-policy and process, the agency systematically collects.... Should be replaced with:

Under an agency-wide policy, approved by the board, the agency systematically collects….
Policies are the pervue of the board, carrying out the process that implements the policies is the responsibility of agency management.

The current language is not consistent with other standards that requires that the board adopt policies.

Thank you for assisting in this effort to assist the Partnership provide high quality guidance to agencies participating in self-studies. The Partnership will consider all suggestions for this revision submitted by October 15, 2009.

DIRECTOR OF T&TA IS A SENIOR-LEVEL POSITION

As noted in a previous e news, Larry Koziarz, the Partnership’s former director of training & technical assistance is moving to a part-time position, focusing on our Pathways to Excellence program. The Partnership is looking for a full-time T&TA director who will have major responsibilities in helping us strengthen Community Action in a wide variety of ways. If you or someone you know is interested, please read the job announcement below which will appear in The Washington Post on Sunday, September 20th. Applications are being accepted immediately (no phone calls) and we are looking to fill this position as soon as possible.

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Director of Training & Technical Assistance

National, non-profit anti-poverty membership assn seeks candidate with minimum 5 years experience in Community Action or related field to head up national T&TA efforts. Must have strong writing, analytic, organizational, computer & communications skills, experience with federal & state funding and training programs & models, travel required, must work well under pressure, Bachelor’s required, Master’s degree preferred, send resume, writing sample, 3 references, salary requirements to Don Mathis, CAP, 1140 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 1210, Washington, DC 20036. No phone calls.
CAP is an Equal Opportunity Employer.