Our Work Must Continue Without Disruption

Paralysis rearranges lives with bewildering speed. Where do you turn for reassurance that even though your life might now be different, it will not be diminished?

For hundreds of thousands of Americans living with paralysis, the answer and critical lifeline in the days after injury and far beyond is the National Paralysis Resource Center (NPRC) at the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, appropriated annually by Congress. The NPRC has long been supported through a competitive, cooperative grant administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)’s Administration for Community Living (ACL).

The announcement by HHS to eliminate the ACL and redistribute its programs among other agencies raises concerns about maintaining the continuity and effectiveness of critical programs that support people with disabilities and their caregivers. These programs have been instrumental in advancing bipartisan efforts to improve health, independence, and quality of life, and they must remain intact to prevent disruption in services and progress.

The mission of the NPRC is straightforward: to provide people living with paralysis the resources they need to pursue the lives they want. Since 2002, we’ve supported community members as they manage complicated health challenges, build families, pursue an education, and advance meaningful careers. Quite simply, helping individuals with disabilities live like everyone else.

The NPRC is just one of ACL’s programs that must continue without disruption.

• From a disability and rehabilitation research perspective, ACL's National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) coordinates disability and rehabilitation science across the federal government to maximize efficiencies and government resources.
• The ACL-funded National Limb Loss Resource Center (operated by the Amputee Coalition) ensures access to the most comprehensive, high-quality, evidence-based information, resources, and supports for people with limb loss and limb differences, their families, and their support networks.
• Older adults will be among the most impacted, as this restructuring might dismantle vital community-based services and meal programs.
• People living with intellectual and developmental disabilities may face severe interruptions to the services provided by Developmental Disability councils, University Centers on Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, and Protection and Advocacy networks.
• Centers for Independent Living and Area Agencies on Aging provide crucial services that allow individuals with disabilities and older adults to stay in their communities, preventing expensive institutional care. These services are not just cost-effective -- they are life-saving.
  
  

“We have to be extremely careful with every dollar we spend. But we've also got to take care of our family -- and not slash programs that people need. We should be enabling and healing and curing,” said Christopher Reeve in 1996, urging policymakers to ensure that the most vulnerable among us are not left to fend for themselves.

HHS, ACL, and the NPRC and other such programs give life to this ideal. We are looking forward to working with HHS, Congress, all elected leaders, and the American people -- regardless of political affiliation -- to come together to preserve the progress made by bipartisan policies and programs.