SPECIAL NOTICE
R -- Legal Assistance and Elder Rights
- Notice Date
- 1/4/2021 7:49:22 AM
- Notice Type
- Special Notice
- Contracting Office
- ASA OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR ADMINISTRATION Washington DC 20201 USA
- ZIP Code
- 20201
- Solicitation Number
- HHS-PSC-RFI-21-75P00121R00015
- Response Due
- 1/18/2021 3:00:00 PM
- Archive Date
- 02/02/2021
- Point of Contact
- ANNE MINEWEASER, Phone: 301-492-4606
- E-Mail Address
-
ANNE.MINEWEASER@PSC.HHS.GOV
(ANNE.MINEWEASER@PSC.HHS.GOV)
- Description
- INTRODUCTION This is a Request for Information (RFI). This is NOT a solicitation for proposals, proposal abstracts, or quotations. The purpose of this RFI is to obtain knowledge and information for project planning purposes. Respondents are solely responsible for all expenses associated with responding to this notice.� Interested vendors responding to this request for information may provide capability information for all pieces of this requirement or for an entire solution.� Respondents will not be notified of any results derived from a review of the information provided; however, information gathered may be utilized for technical and acquisition purposes. Time permitting and depending upon the information received individual vendors may be contacted for product demonstration.� The U.S. Government will not pay for any costs associated with such demonstration(s) of any software products. 2.� BACKGROUND The Older Americans Act (OAA) envisions the key role for legal assistance providers in enabling older Americans to assert their rights and remove barriers to economic and personal independence and self-determination. Interventions by providers can address the social determinants of health and wellbeing, preserve older Americans� access to appropriate services, and support their rights to live free from or recover from the experience of abuse, neglect, and financial exploitation. Title IV, Section 420(a)(1) of the OAA establishes a national legal assistance support system for aging and legal assistance providers and advocates. This provision is carried out through the National Center on Law and Elder Rights (NCLER), currently administered by Justice in Aging since August 2016. The purpose of NCLER is to provide national resource support for professionals and advocates working in elder rights, legal assistance, and associated aging services networks. NCLER supports the knowledge, expertise, and service delivery capacity of legal and aging service organizations through a range of activities, including case consultation, legal training, and technical assistance on issues related to OAA-prioritized legal assistance, elder rights, and capacity building. The Office of Elder Justice and Adult Protective Services (OEJAPS), within the Administration on Aging within the Administration for Community Living (ACL), manages the operation and administration of NCLER. The current contract for these activities expires in August 2021. ACL/OEJAPS is conducting a market survey for the continued operation of NCLER to provide comprehensive assistance to legal assistance and aging providers and advocates on a broad range of priority legal issues and service capacity issues impacting older adults. Per Title IV, Section 420(c) of the OAA, this contract must be fulfilled by a nonprofit organization experienced in providing support and technical assistance on a nationwide basis to States, area agencies on aging, legal assistance providers, ombudsmen, elder abuse prevention programs, and other organizations interested in the legal rights of older individuals. 3.� OBJECTIVE The objective for this RFI is to gather industry information on the best solutions for generating, disseminating, and applying knowledge and expertise intended to improve the quality, efficiency, and effectiveness of state and local programs that provide legal assistance and elder rights services and interventions to older adults. The offeror should demonstrate the ability, capability, and capacity to serve as a centralized national legal assistance support center that will: Support the knowledge, expertise, and capacity of aging and associated legal assistance networks in order to enhance the quality, accessibility, and outcomes of legal assistance and elder rights programs provided to older persons with the most social or economic needs. Provide informed and actionable legal training through a variety of approaches and methods on the most pressing range of life issues impacting older adults that may be amenable to legal solutions. Provide responsive, timely, and actionable technical assistance and expert advice on complex legal issues impacting older Americans with economic or social need. Provide knowledgeable and responsive support, resources, tools, and guidance for elder rights and legal assistance professionals to use in building capacity to provide elder rights and legal assistance to older Americans with economic or social need ???????4. SCOPE ACL anticipates the range of tasks under this contract to focus on three core areas: (1) substantive and skills training on legal and elder rights substantive issues and practice matters, (2) technical assistance on legal assistance and elder rights, and (3) elder rights capacity-building activities. The success of the project will require effective planning, ongoing project management, effective service promotion, extensive substantive and technical knowledge and skills, and close coordination between the ACL and the contractor. ACL seeks optimal solutions for providing a full range of resource support with the goal of enabling aging and associated legal organizations to ensure effective, accessible, and quality legal assistance for older persons with a range of social and economic needs. ACL is looking for innovative and cost-effective approaches to providing resource support services in the areas indicated in the RFI. ACL is seeking solutions that reflect an understanding of current assumptions and methods, consider new, innovative, and creative approaches, build on existing successes, and employ reasonable strategies to implement those approaches. The solutions proposed should reflect ACL�s commitment to a person-centered, person-directed approach that is based on individual strengths, assets, goals, culture, and expectations along with their needs, and that is based on the belief that all individuals have the right to exercise choice in, and control of, the direction of the services they receive. ACL, NCLER, and stakeholders will focus programmatic training and technical assistance on the most salient and life-impacting legal issues that affect older adults in accordance with the applicable provisions of the Older Americans Act related statutory authority, and other relevant considerations. Training and technical assistance will be designed to ensure and enhance legal assistance and elder rights network capacity to provide accessible and effective legal assistance and elder rights services to older adults with economic and social need. 5. TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS The technical requirements of this contract are as follows: Provide for Project Planning, Coordination, and Communication Establish plans to periodically assess the resource support needs of elder rights, legal assistance and associated aging services networks, including but not limited to describing how the offeror would consult with stakeholders nationwide and employ its own expertise in creating a legal training curriculum, technical assistance, and capacity development plan. Establish plans to coordinate with other ACL resource centers to reach various elder rights, legal assistance, and aging service provider network stakeholders and grantees for possible collaborations advancing NCLER services.2.�Provide Legal Training for Legal Assistance and Aging Networks Develop and implement an annual practical skills and substantive legal training curriculum, in consultation with ACL. The curriculum should be adequately flexible to adjust the training agenda to respond to unanticipated circumstances and changes to the elder rights and legal assistance landscape. Identify broad legal topics for practical skills and substantive legal training curriculum and determine target audiences for trainings, consistent with the applicable provisions of the Older Americans Act, and based upon NCLER�s own expertise and stakeholder consultation. Deliver trainings through a wide range of existing and innovative venues, vehicles and platforms, to be identified by NCLER in consultation with ACL.??????? ??????? 3.Provide Technical Assistance for Aging� and Legal Assistance Networks Propose and provide various forms of technical assistance to support the knowledge, expertise ,and capacity of aging and legal assistance network professionals. Technical assistance should include, but is not limited to providing substantive legal advice and assistance related to the priority matters referenced above, assisting in the design, implementation, administration, and capacity of legal assistance programs, and other forms of technical assistance, as determined by NCLER and in consultation with ACL. This includes, but is not limited to: Identifying areas in which technical assistance should be coordinated with other core NCLER functions, such as training and legal assistance capacity building. Developing� new topics and maintaining existing �subject matter and procedural modules, state customization approaches and dissemination and promotion strategies for the Elder Justice Toolkit. Providing technical assistance on data collection and reporting activities, including but not limited to ACL�s State Performance Reports, which are required of legal assistance providers funded under the Older Americans Act. 4.�Provide �Legal Assistance and Elder Rights Capacity Building Develop, propose and implement plans to deliver capacity-building services to elder rights, legal assistance, and associated aging network professionals with the objective of maximizing the ability of these professionals to serve older adults with social or economic needs in accordance with the dictates of the relevant provisions of the Older Americans Act. In consultation with ACL, identify and propose �issues that may be appropriate for more focused and intensive strategic interventions entailing work with specific legal assistance, elder rights and associated aging services professions in specific states, localities or geographic areas, to include training, technical assistance, and/or capacity-building. Develop and propose criteria for identifying specific areas in which to implement work within the identified scope, and replicability and sustainability of such interventions. ?????????????????????5.Provide for Promotion, Public Awareness, and Accessibility Develop, propose, and implement a comprehensive strategic communications and public awareness plan to expand national awareness of the legal assistance and elder rights resource support available through NCLER. Develop, propose, and establish multiple methods through which elder rights, legal assistance and associated aging network professionals may request resource support, trainings, technical assistance, case consultations, and capacity building assistance from NCLER. Maintain and expand a list of aging and legal assistance professionals in order to communicate with their networks in broad and targeted ways to provide support and resources through existing and innovative methods, including but not limited to dissemination of informational materials and alerts about training and technical assistance opportunities. �������������� � � � � � � � � INSTRUCTIONS FOR RESPONDING TO RFI Responses to this RFI should include a Statement of Qualifications/Capabilities Statement package as the cover letter. The cover letter must cite the following information at a minimum: (1) Response to RFI Number; (2) Organization Name, Address, Contact Person Information; (3) Organization�s DUNS Number; (4) Business Size and Size Standard/Classification; and (5) Applicable GSA Schedule contract number, NITAAC contract number or other available procurement vehicle. Please identify your size classification relative to North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) code of 5411 for this requirement. Include whether or not you are a small business; HUBZone small business; service-disabled, veteran-owned small businesses; 8(a) small business; women-owned small business; or small disadvantaged business in order to assist the government in determining the appropriate acquisition method, including whether a set-aside is possible. Please note that the collection of this data does not obligate the U.S. Government to the incorporation of the solicited comments in any future procurement action nor does it obligate the Government to the procurement of any services or products related to this RFI. Proprietary information should not be included in the RFI response. Responses to this RFI will not be returned. Interested parties shall provide information addressing the following questions and statements in their white paper responding to this RFI: Have you ever developed and supported a national resource center providing technical assistance, training, and capacity-building services to the elder rights and legal assistance networks, or provided services possessing the capabilities described above? If so, when, what was it called, what was the cost, how long did it take to develop and implement, and who was your customer? If you provided these services, who were your customers, what services did you provide, what methods and strategies did you use? Please describe the services, approaches, innovations, and strategies you could provide to meet specifications described above in Sections III, IV and V.� In addition, please explain why you think your product or services possess the capabilities described above. Please describe your organization�s knowledge of elder rights, legal assistance, and related services, and any current or prior work related to the technical requirements outlined above.� Explain how you believe you can bring together a team to support ACL, and our state and local partners, as we continue to develop and mature NCLER. What differentiates your organization from other organizations, and how will that increase value to this project? Information provided in response to this RFI must be submitted electronically no later than 15 calendar days from the date of posting, in the form of a �white paper.� Responses should be limited to not more than 5 single spaced pages exclusive of marketing slicks or published information available at time of release of the RFI request.� We request electronic responses only.� E-mail a copy of all response files to the Contracting Officer at: anne.mineweaser@psc.hhs.gov Question and Answer data will be updated to this RFI. Responses to this RFI shall be submitted via email to: anne.mineweaser@psc.hhs.gov no later than 1/18/2021, 5:00PM EST. �Disclaimer and Important Notes. This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. The Government reserves the right to use information provided by respondents for any purpose deemed necessary and legally appropriate. Any organization responding to this notice should ensure that its response is complete and sufficiently detailed. Information provided will be used to assess tradeoffs and alternatives available for the potential requirement and may lead to the development of a solicitation. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. Any solicitation resulting from the analysis of information obtained will be announced to the public in Federal Business Opportunities in accordance with the FAR Part 5. However, responses to this notice will not be considered adequate responses to a solicitation. Confidentiality. No proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should be included in your response. The Government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).
- Web Link
-
SAM.gov Permalink
(https://beta.sam.gov/opp/c13c2f5dd6554dd2889eebb4cfb74d74/view)
- Place of Performance
- Address: Bethesda, MD 20814, USA
- Zip Code: 20814
- Country: USA
- Zip Code: 20814
- Record
- SN05883931-F 20210106/210104230058 (samdaily.us)
- Source
-
SAM.gov Link to This Notice
(may not be valid after Archive Date)
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