# Elder Rights Support Activities

**Agency:** Health & Human Services  
**Account:** Discretionary Programs  
**Source document:** Administration for Children, Families, and Communities · p. 11  
**Vintage:** President's Budget PB2027  
**Canonical URL:** https://hitchintel.com/budget/hhs/elder-rights-support-activities  

> **Trust:** parsed from the agency Congressional Justification. Approximate, **not summable**, verify at the cited page.

## Funding ($M)

| Fiscal year | Basis | Amount |
| --- | --- | --- |
| FY2025 | enacted | 33.9 |
| FY2026 | enacted | 33.9 |
| FY2027 | request | 34.0 |

## Health & Human Services discretionary budget authority (OMB PBDB — authoritative)

FY2027 $91.60B, FY2026 $131.10B. This is the agency total, not a sum of the parsed lines.


## What this funds

ACFC's Elder Rights Support Activities and Elder Justice-Adult Protective Services (APS) initiatives work together to protect older adults and adults with disabilities from abuse, neglect, and exploitation and to uphold their rights in both community and long-term care settings. Through grants, technical assistance, national resource centers, and cross-system coordination, these programs strengthen the infrastructure and professional capacity needed to promote safety, independence, autonomy, and well- Elder Rights Support Activities provide national leadership and technical expertise through four core components: the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA), the National Long-Term Care Ombudsman Resource Center (NORC), the National Center on Law and Elder Rights (NCLER), and the Legal Assistance Enhancement Program. These resources operate in coordination with ACFC's Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program, APS programs, and local legal assistance providers to support prevention, NCEA serves as the nation's primary resource for addressing elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation. It supports state and local systems through training, technical assistance, consultations, public education, dissemination of promising practices and research, and information sharing among professionals, including strategies to address financial exploitation and fraud. NORC strengthens state and local long-term care ombudsman programs that advocate for residents of nursing facilities and assisted living and board-and-care homes. NORC supports 53 state programs 1,000 technical assistance requests and provided training, peer learning, and updated guidance to address emerging challenges in long-term care oversight and resident rights. NCLER builds the capacity of legal assistance providers serving older adults through training, technical assistance, and resource development. NCLER supports a national network of more than 57,000 professionals across legal, aging, disability, and protective services systems. In the most recent contract expanding access to timely legal and policy guidance. The Legal Assistance Enhancement Program complements this work by funding innovations to improve outreach, partnerships, intake, and service Complementing these efforts, ACFC's Elder Justice-APS programs focus on strengthening state and local systems that respond to maltreatment and self-neglect. APS programs investigate reports, conduct case services, balancing client safety with the right to self-determination. Historically administered at the state Administration for Children, Families, and Communities Page 143 and local level, APS systems have varied widely, resulting in fragmentation and uneven access to Federal APS investments have supported system-wide improvements, including implementation of the National Adult Maltreatment Reporting System), the first comprehensive national system to measure elder and adult maltreatment. Although reporting is voluntary, 100 percent of states and territories have participated since the beginning. Funding also supports research, evaluation, and technical assistance to ACFC has also led national guardianship reform efforts through competitive grants to states' highest courts to improve oversight, monitoring, and reform of guardianship proceedings, with the goal of preserving decisional rights and promoting person-directed alternatives. In addition, ACFC supports translation and testing of evidence-informed approaches to address cases involving opioid misuse, including research, environmental scans, and pilot initiatives to identify replicable strategies for APS The Elder Justice Coordinating Council (EJCC), chaired by the Secretary of Health and Human Services and implemented by ACFC strengthens federal coordination. With participation from 17 federal departments and agencies, including the Department of Justice, the EJCC advances coordinated federal action to prevent and address elder abuse, neglect, and exploitation. Funding for the program - net of any authorized changes such as transfers or reprogramming - for five For FY 2025, six grants were made for the Elder Rights Support Activities program with an average of grants will be made for the Elder Rights Support Activities program with an average of $351,058 and a The FY 2027 request for the Elder Rights Support Activities program is $34.0 million, an increase of For FY 2027, it is estimated that six grants will be made for the Elder Rights Support Activities program Administration for Children, Families, and Communities Page 144 The Aging and Disability Resource Centers (ADRCs) support states in simplifying and coordinating access to long-term services and supports for older adults and people with disabilities. With ACFC support, states have developed or expanded "No Wrong Door" systems that allow multiple state agencies to retain program responsibility while using a single, standardized process to connect individuals and families to services across systems. No Wrong Door systems are now operating in 56 states and territories. At the local level, community-based ADRCs provide one-on-one, person-centered counseling and serve as consumer-friendly entry points that help individuals and caregivers navigate complex service In FY 2023, ACFC awarded two-year grants to 10 states to strengthen ADRC and No Wrong Door infrastructure. Grantees assessed how individuals and family caregivers experience access to long-term services and supports and used those findings to address gaps through coordinated, multi-agency ADRCs also play a central role in the Veteran-Directed Care program, a partnership between the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and ACFC. Through this program, ADRCs and other aging and


**Where it sits:** Civilian / Non-Defense › Health & Human Services › Administration for Children, Families, and Communities › Discretionary Programs › Aging and Disability Services Programs


*HitchAI is an independent intelligence service, not affiliated with the U.S. government. Civilian line dollars are parsed from agency Congressional Justifications and are approximate.*