The Administration for Community Living (ACL) will hold a competition for a cooperative agreement to operate the National Long-Term Care Ombudsman Resource Center (NORC).

The award is a cooperative agreement because ACL will be involved substantially in the project.

The cooperative agreement

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will provide for training, technical assistance and support to the States' Offices of Long-Term Care Ombudsman programs, in every State, Puerto Rico, Guam and the District of Columbia.

The overall Center goals for the new grant cycle will be to:
(1) enhance the skills, knowledge, and management capacity of State Long-Term Care Ombudsman programs to enable them to effectively respond to residents’ complaints and represent their interests on both an individual and systemic level; and (2) strengthen this Older Americans Act core program by developing innovative, effective approaches for states to provide Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program services to long-term care facility residents, regardless of age.

Through NORC training and technical assistance, LTC Ombudsman programs will:
(1) increase their skills and approaches in advocating for long-term care residents; (2) further collaborative efforts to strengthen Ombudsman program involvement with state and federal initiatives that benefit long-term care residents; (3) be kept appraised of changes in long-term services and supports, best practices and on-demand training through the on-going development and maintenance of a website; (4) coordinate activities with other ACL funded resources centers to maximize efficiencies.

The NORC will incorporate findings from the LTCOP Process evaluation in developing their training and technical assistance.

Additionally NORC will seek innovative and creative solutions and technologies to increase the reach, efficiency and effectiveness of NORC activities; paramount is to bring NORC into the Elder Justice website suite.