Washington, DC – The Arc’s Center for Future Planning™ is pleased to announce it has received a $200,000 two-year grant from the MetLife Foundation. This funding will be dedicated toward developing a new financial literacy training program for families that include a child with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), with a specific interest in reaching historically underserved racial and ethnic communities.

Research has shown that disability and poverty are intertwined, and many families that have a child with IDD struggle financially. Often, income declines when a child with IDD is born because parents take time off of work or leave the workforce entirely to care for the child’s needs. This reduction of household income, combined with the income and asset limits in many public means-tested benefits available to these families, only complicates asset building.

The training will address these challenges by educating and supporting low-income families to lay the foundation for a secure financial future for their child with IDD. More specifically, The Arc will develop a financial literacy curriculum that can be later distributed throughout The Arc’s national network of over 650 chapters. Topics to be covered will include credit, debt, choosing financial products and services, investing, and asset protection, as well as disability-related topics, such as information on benefits for people with disabilities, as well as special needs trusts and ABLE Act accounts.

“During our 65 year history, The Arc has always recognized the importance of supporting families of people with IDD. In these challenging economic times, it is all the more important that we work with families of children with IDD to stabilize the family’s financial situation. This support from the MetLife Foundation will allow The Arc to assist families in achieving long-term financial stability,” said Peter Berns, CEO of The Arc.

The Arc will lead a team to create a nationally replicable, culturally competent curriculum to provide financial literacy education to low-income families. After piloting the training with three chapters, The Arc will modify the curriculum so that it can be distributed through our network of chapters around the country. This work will also be supported by the Family Support Research and Training Center through a subcontract with the University of Illinois at Chicago and made possible by grant number 90RT5032-02-01 from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR) at the US Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Community Living (US DHHS/ACL).

The mission of The Arc’s Center for Future Planning is to support and encourage adults with IDD and their families to plan for the future. The Center provides reliable information and assistance to individuals with IDD, their family members and friends, professionals who support them and other members of the community on areas such as person-centered planning, decision-making, housing options, and financial planning.

The Arc advocates for and serves people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), including Down syndrome, autism, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, cerebral palsy and other diagnoses. The Arc has a network of over 650 chapters across the country promoting and protecting the human rights of people with IDD and actively supporting their full inclusion and participation in the community throughout their lifetimes and without regard to diagnosis.

Editor’s Note: The Arc is not an acronym; always refer to us as The Arc, not The ARC and never ARC. The Arc should be considered as a title or a phrase.