OSERS-OSEP: Technical Assistance and Dissemination to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities: Model Demonstration Projects to Develop Coaching Systems

Overview

<p>The Department of Education (Department) is issuing a notice inviting applications for new awards for fiscal year (FY) 2020 for Model Demonstration Projects to Develop Coaching Systems, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number 84.326M. These projects will provide support to professionals to collaborate with early learning and early intervention programs, schools, districts, and State agencies to establish the infrastructure, personnel skills, and processes necessary for an effective and sustainable coaching system. </p> <p>The purpose of the Technical Assistance and Dissemination to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities program is to promote academic achievement and to improve results for children with disabilities by providing technical assistance (TA), supporting model demonstration projects, disseminating useful information, and implementing activities that are supported by scientifically based research.</p> <p><span>This competition includes one </span><span>absolute priority, one competitive preference priority, and one </span><span>invitational priority.</span></p> <p><strong>Absolute Priority: Model Demonstration Projects to Develop Coaching Systems</strong></p> <p>The purpose of this priority is to fund three cooperative agreements to establish and operate evidence-based model demonstration projects. The models will implement coaching systems in early intervention, early learning, elementary school, middle school, or high school settings.</p> <p><span>The models will address the </span><span>infrastructure (e.g., implementation teams) and ongoing supports </span><span>needed to foster the development, implementation, and evaluation of coaches and a coaching </span><span>system to support personnel who work with children with disabilities.</span></p> <p><span>The models will demonstrate me</span><span>thods for identifying coaching strategies and the necessary </span><span>intensity and frequency of those strategies to meet the needs of personnel being coached.</span></p> <p><span>The models will capture information about challenges to implementation and determine what </span><span>system </span><span>supports may assist in meeting those challenges. Additionally, the models will use </span><span>coaching data to provide information about how coaching services affect provider services and, </span><span>accordingly, child outcomes (i.e., connecting coaching fidelity data to inter</span><span>vention fidelity data to </span><span>child outcome data). The model demonstration projects will assess how models can</span><span>--</span></p> <ul> <li><span>Support implementation of evidence</span><span>-</span><span>based practices that improve outcomes for children with </span><span>disabilities;</span><span></span></li> <li><span>Improve the capacity of local coache</span><span>s to support personnel who serve children with </span><span>disabilities;</span><span></span></li> <li><span>Improve the capacity of sites and the central offices or programs that support them to build </span><span>infrastructure that supports an effective coaching system; and</span><span></span></li> <li><span>Improve understanding of how Stat</span><span>e agencies could reduce barriers to, and support, </span><span>implementation of coaching systems.</span></li> </ul> <p><strong>Competitive Preference Priority 1: (0 or 5 points) Projects proposed by applicants that have not had an active grant award under the Technical Assistance and Dissemination to Improve Services and Results for Children model demonstration grants (84.326M) at any point in the preceding five fiscal years (i.e., FY 2015-FY 2019).</strong></p> <p><strong>Invitational Priority: Projects that include a virtual delivery method within their coaching system.</strong></p> <p></p>