Rockland Independent Living Center, Inc. (BRiDGES)

In a state as large as New York, a steady stream of smart, innovative work is coming from NYHealth grantees and non-grantees alike that is relevant to NYHealth’s priority areas of Building Healthy Communities and Empowering Health Care Consumers and its focus area on Veterans’ Health. These organizations should be elevating their work and informing key stakeholders at regional, statewide, and national conferences, meetings, and other convenings. Yet, because of a lack of resources, they are often unable to do so. To address this issue, NYHealth is awarding grants through its Sponsoring Conference Participation in Support of Healthy Communities, Consumer Empowerment, and Veterans’ Health Request for Proposals (RFP). Through this RFP, NYHealth is sponsoring low-resource organizations to attend and present at local, State, and national conferences related to these areas. In 2018, NYHealth awarded Rockland Independent Living Center (BRiDGES) a grant to participate in this initiative as part of its efforts to empower health care consumers.

Under this grant, the director of operations for BRiDGES attended the National Council on Independent Living’s 2018 annual conference. The director of operations attended workshops led by leaders in the field of independent living. These sessions provided insights and trends for BRiDGES programming to help empower people with disabilities to become partners in their own health care, including its PASER program that maximizes autonomy and independence.

View a complete list of conference participation grantees.