Community Service Block Grant (CSBG) Communities of Practice (CoP) - California Community Action Partnership Association (CalCAPA) submits this application to serve as the lead applicant for CSBG Communities of Practice (CoP) 6, one of six Communities of Practice (CoPs) established by the Office of Community Services (OCS) under the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) Communities of Practice funding opportunity (HHS-2026-ACF-OCS-ET-0029). CoP 6 comprises six CSBG grant recipients — American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Delaware, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico — representing 92 CSBG-eligible entities (CSBG EEs), two state associations, and no directly funded tribes. CalCAPA has served as the incumbent lead state association for the predecessor Region IX Regional Performance and Innovation Consortium (RPIC) Capacity Building and Quality Improvement (CBQI) award and brings six years of demonstrated experience coordinating multi-state, multi-territory CSBG training and technical assistance (T/TA). CoP 6's jurisdictions span three noncontiguous regions of the United States and its territories and differ widely in size, infrastructure, and organizational maturity: from California's sixty CSBG EEs to single-agency territories such as Delaware and the District of Columbia, to Arkansas' fifteen eligible entities, Puerto Rico's four eligible entities, and American Samoa's eleven eligible entities. Needs-assessment data from the CSBG Needs Assessment Dashboard (FY22) and CalCAPA's own CoP 6 planning process point to persistent needs in three areas: program integrity, fiscal stewardship, and compliance; network capacity building, professional development, and data-informed practice; and de-siloing services through a No Wrong Door approach to economic mobility, education and workforce, transportation, housing, and behavioral health. CalCAPA will address these needs through a three-goal T/TA strategy delivered in two phases over the 36-month period of performance: a Phase One planning period (months 1–6) to complete a CoP 6-wide T/TA needs assessment and T/TA plan, and a Phase Two implementation and evaluation period (months 7–36) to deliver trainings, templates, tools, and individualized technical assistance; convene CoP 6 quarterly and annually; and track progress toward measurable outputs and outcomes for each of CoP 6's 92 CSBG EEs and six states/territories. CalCAPA will subaward a portion of funding to the state association in Arkansas for state-specific coordination, consistent with its successful Region IX RPIC subaward model, while working directly with CSBG lead agencies and eligible entities in American Samoa, Delaware, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, which have no direct state associations. Puerto Rico in particular has no CSBG state association at all — an absence that has created a real coordination challenge for CalCAPA — so CalCAPA will engage Puerto Rico's state CSBG office directly from the start of Phase One.
