Assistance program
Program of Protection and Advocacy of Individual Rights
$166.6 Million committed in FY2018–FY2026
- Agency
- Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Education, Department of
- Assistance
- Formula Grants
- CFDA number
- 84.240
- What it does
- To provide grants for States, and to the eligible system serving the American Indian Consortium when sufficient funds are appropriated for the program in accordance with section 509(c)(1)(B) of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Rehabilitation Act), to support protection and advocacy systems to protect the legal and human rights of individuals with disabilities who are ineligible for services from the other protection and advocacy programs or whose problems fall outside the scope of services available from the Client Assistance Program (CAP). This program is subject to a statutory non-supplanting requirement and, therefore, must use a restricted indirect cost rate in accordance with 34 CFR 76.563 through 76.569. For assistance with questions related to the restricted indirect cost rate, email the Indirect Cost Division at IndirectCostDivision@ed.gov.
- Who benefits
- Individuals with disabilities will benefit.
- Who applies
- Only designated protection and advocacy agencies in each State and Territory, and the protection and advocacy system serving the American Indian Consortium, may apply. Except for the protection and advocacy system serving the American Indian Consortium, the Governor designates the protection and advocacy agency in each State.
- Authorized by
- Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments