UPDATE: We’ve extended our deadline by a month. Please submit all applications by Thursday, April 30 at 5pm.


The Center for Care Innovations (CCI) and our partners are now accepting applications for the California ACEs Learning and Quality Improvement Collaborative (CALQIC), a new program that will support clinics in screening for and responding to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in children and adults.

CALQIC is led by the UCSF Center to Advance Trauma-Informed Health Care in partnership with CCI, the California Office of the Surgeon General, California Department of Health Care Services, and RAND Corporation. The program’s goal is to integrate ACEs screening and response within health care settings in a way that enhances relationships between patients and providers, helps connect patients to supportive services, and leads to better outcomes such as reduced disparities and positive experiences with care. This learning collaborative will support up to 15 clinics representing at least 50 sites over 15-18 months to:

  • Identify and overcome barriers to ACEs screening and response at both the site and organizational level;
  • Align clinical efforts with the statewide initiative, ACEs Aware, which is working to help providers get credentialed, use approved screening tools, bill using appropriate CPT codes, and more;
  • Develop or strengthen models of care and tools for operationalizing ACEs screening and response (i.e., roles, workflows, scripts, etc);
  • Collect and track data to assess progress in ACEs screening and response.

Our learning collaborative is well suited for organizations that have some experience and infrastructure in place to screen and respond to ACEs. This includes organizations with most of the following elements in place:

  • Started to implement organizational-wide, trauma-informed care practices;
  • Piloted or implemented screening processes to identify ACEs OR have the ability to begin screening at least one clinical site by mid-2020;
  • A desire to align clinical efforts with the statewide initiative, ACEs Aware.
  • Either behavioral health or other internal resources available, or partnerships with external agencies or community-based organizations to address identified adversity or other related needs; and
  • Data, IT, and QI systems in place with the ability to track and make improvements to ACEs screening and response processes.
What We’ll Provide

Selected organizations will receive a range of technical assistance support and up to $70,000 in grant funds. Grant dollars can be used to offset staff time spent participating in this program or leading change efforts at your organization; travel costs to attend the program’s in-person convenings and site visits; and other associated costs.

Training and technical assistance support may include, but is not limited to:

  • Toolkits and resources to support ACEs screening implementation.
  • Monthly coaching support.
  • Access to technical expertise from organizations like UCSF Center to Advance Trauma-Informed Health Care in addition to safety net clinics leading similar efforts at their organizations.
  • Three, one-day in-person convenings.
  • Two optional regional workshops.
  • Webinar-based learning, including a mix of expert- and peer-led sharing on topics participants identify as challenges.
  • Site visits to exemplar organizations who have successfully implemented ACEs screening and integrated trauma-informed care principles into their workplaces.
  • Support measuring and tracking your organization’s progress in ACEs screening and response.
Program Timeline

The learning collaborative will run for 15-18 months. Decisions about the overall length of the collaborative will be shared once the final cohort is announced in June, but please plan to budget for 18 months at this time.

Key dates

  • Application Deadline: Thursday, April 30, 2020 at 5pm
  • Cohort Announced via Email: Monday, June 15, 2020
  • Program Kickoff Webinar: July 2020 (date TBD)
  • First In-Person Session: Fall 2020 (date TBD)
  • Program End: October 31, 2021
Eligibility

The learning collaborative will include up to 15 organizations representing at least 50 sites that provide comprehensive primary care services to Medi-Cal adult and pediatric patients. Organizations will be selected across the state with the goal of achieving geographic diversity.

While the participation and funding for CALQIC will be at the organizational level, ACEs screening and response is expected to be carried out at an initial pilot site (or sites) with the goal of spreading ACEs screening to additional sites (for organizations with multiple sites). We will be offering two tiers of grant support depending on the organization’s size and ability to spread to other sites:

  • Tier 1 (1-2 sites): $50,000 per organization
  • Tier 2 (3-5 sites): $70,000 per organization

In the application, organizations will be asked to identify at least one pilot site as well as up to four additional spread sites, depending on which tier you are applying for.

Qualifying organizations include:

  • Federally qualified health centers (FQHC) and FQHC look-alikes
  • Community clinics, rural health clinics, and free clinics
  • Ambulatory care clinics owned and operated by public hospitals
  • Indian Health Services clinics
  • Other primary care (or pediatric) practices serving mostly Medi-Cal patients

Regional clinic consortia and statewide clinic associations are not eligible to apply.

Learn More

Watch the Informational Webinar to hear a detailed description of the program and listen to some questions and answers. The slides from the webinar are available here and a detailed FAQ can be found here.

For any other questions, please contact:

Megan O’Brien, CCI Senior Program Manager

[email protected]

Download RFA as PDF