The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention will end funding for three training and technical assistance projects, then roll the work into one grant up for competition this year, The Imprint learned yesterday.
The grantees affected by the shift at OJJDP are:
- National Partnership for Juvenile Services (NPJS), which oversees the National Center on Youth in Custody
- IIR, which provides training and technical assistance on juvenile information sharing
- ICF International, which assists and supports the state advisory groups (SAG) that distribute delinquency prevention funds in each state and territory
The consolidation is part of an attempt by the agency to “achieve efficiency” after a significant decline in its appropriations in the fiscal 2014 spending deal, according to a statement sent to The Imprint by OJJDP Administrator Robert Listenbee.
“As a result of this streamlining process, the training and technical assistance currently provided by the National Center for Youth in Custody, Justice Information Sharing, and the State Advisory Group Training Project will be the subject of a new planned solicitation for Fiscal Year 2014,” Listenbee said in the statement.
All three grantees were guaranteed funding for one year in the 2013 solicitations issued for those grants. Each of those solicitations stated that OJJDP had the option to continue funding in 2014 and 2015.
OJJDP did not announce the consolidation, and has not yet issued a solicitation for the combined training and technical assistance that Listenbee described in his statement.
The Imprint learned through multiple sources last week that the NPJS would not receive 2014 funding for the National Center for Youth in Custody. NPJS co-directed the center from 2010 to 2012 with the Council of Juvenile Correctional Administrators, and received a solo grant for the center last year.
“It’s sad, because as far as I know…we’re the only grantee that services custody facilities,” said Carol Cramer-Brooks, president of NPJS, in a phone call with the Chronicle. “When you shut us down, you shut down all [OJJDP] services to detention, juvenile corrections, and adult facilities serving youthful offenders.”
It now appears that OJJDP will keep some amount of training and technical assistance available for juvenile facility staff. NPJS, which annually relies on OJJDP for a significant portion of its budget, will be forced to make cuts.
The grant fully funded three full-time employees and parts of salaries for two other full-time employees, according to Cramer Brooks, along with a handful of consultants.
IIR received a $175,000 grant to do training and technical assistance related to the National Juvenile Justice Information Sharing Initiative. The website for the initiative is not available at the moment.
This is ICF International’s first year overseeing assistance to the SAGs. OJJDP had funded Development Services Group for that work since 2007. Before that, OJJDP assistance to SAGs was done by the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, which continues to serve a coalition of State Advisory Groups with support from members and foundations.
“OJJDP anticipates the current training and technical assistance providers have sufficient grant funds to maintain services to the field while applications are considered under the new consolidated solicitation,” Listenbee said in his statement to The Imprint.
John Kelly is the editor-in-chief of The Imprint.