Intensive Technical Assistance to State Medicaid Agencies

About the Intensive Technical Assistance:

The DSW Resource Center will offer individualized technical assistance (TA) to up to five state Medicaid agencies each year from 2006 through 2008. The purpose of this TA is to help states develop or implement initiatives that strengthen the workforce that supports individuals with disabilities who live in home and community based settings in their states. CMS is targeting state Medicaid agencies for this TA because of the key role state Medicaid agencies play in quality assurance, worker education, supervisor education for workers and consumers, wages and benefits, and provider reimbursement.

The TA providers are leading experts in the field, TA available includes telephone and on-site consultation as well as targeted research. We encourage states to take advantage of this opportunity for expert assistance in developing new or supporting existing initiatives in one or more key areas:

• Assessing the need for direct service workers in a target area
• Identifying funding sources to meet the growing demand for direct service workers
• Designing and/or implementing a new workforce initiative
• Sustaining or enhancing ongoing workforce efforts
• Marketing new workforce initiatives or increasing participation by workers in existing workforce initiatives (e.g. training, health insurance programs)
• Developing data collection systems and/or outcome measures to demonstrate the success of workforce initiatives

	2006 States (Arizona, Louisiana, New York, South Carolina, Texas)
	2007 States (Georgia, New Jersey, North Carolina, Utah, Wisconsin)
	2008 States (Delaware, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Vermont)