Overview

The Epilepsy Foundation was awarded a second cooperative agreement to develop and manage a National Technical Assistance Center to support the implementation of Project Access. The Center is modeled after other national centers of excellence such as the National Center for Cultural Competence at Georgetown University; Family Voices; National Center of Medical Home Initiatives for Children with Special Needs; Catalyst Center; Champions for Inclusive Communities; Healthy and Ready to Work; and National Center for Hearing Assessment/ Management. Functions of the National Center include:

• Provide technical assistance and support in the areas of social marketing, outreach and communicating with diverse communities
• Coordinated grantee meetings
• Conduct a national needs assessment and project evaluation
• Recruit and coordinate a national training and technical assistance team consisting of experts and project staff from the first grant cycle to promote best practices and provide training to new sites.
• Develop education materials for health care providers serving racial/ethnic minorities and rural areas.
• Write and disseminate white papers on topics of interest related to access to health care for children with epilepsy
• Review, revise and/or develop educational presentations and curricula in languages identified in the grantees’ target populations.
• Draft print, radio, and TV messages for use by participating sites in racial and ethnic minority communities and rural areas on seizure recognition and first aid. Include optional graphic treatments and potential spokespeople.
• Test effectiveness of messages, graphics, and spokespeople through focus groups representative of the target audiences.

The Foundation also received a cooperative agreement award from 2004-2007 to create and implement targeted state outreach campaigns for the projects and to provide technical assistance to the sites to develop family and community resources, and public awareness materials which promoted the projects.