South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative

The Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Discretionary Grant Program (Reentry) was developed through a federal partnership by the Departments of Justice, Labor, Health and Human Service, Education, Housing and Urban Development, Commerce, Veterans Affairs and Agriculture. The federal partners' goal is to help state and local agencies navigate the complex field of existing state formula and block grants and to assist them in accessing, redeploying and leveraging those resources to support the components of a comprehensive reentry program. In addition to the new funding, the federal partners are identifying funds from their respective agencies that are already available to state and local agencies to provide the necessary services to implement a reentry program. The Reentry Program is designed to provide funding to state and local units of government to develop and implement institutional and community corrections-based offender reentry programs through collaborative partnerships with government, social service, faith-based, and community organizations, in order to reduce recidivism, increase public safety, and successfully reintegrate serious and violent offenders back into the community. Reentry programs are required to partner with a state adult or juvenile correctional agency.

The South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice (SCDJJ) is designing this program to expand upon and enhance the substance abuse and mental health services available to juvenile offenders in SCDJJ's Reentry Initiative. It will enable SCDJJ to fill important gaps in the continuum of services available to juveniles and will provide for improved assessment of juveniles' progress and the overall effectiveness of the initiative. In the area of mental health services, SCDJJ will use the additional funding to contract with the South Carolina Department of Mental Health and/or qualified public or private vendors to administer the Child and Adolescent Functional Assessment Scale (CAFAS) to project juveniles. The additional funds requested for substance abuse services will be used to provide comprehensive substance abuse assessments of juveniles and to provide a family-strengthening program for the families of juveniles with substance abuse issues, and to provide essential training needed by project staff and the Reentry Planning and Review Teams to function more effectively. SCDJJ also plans to use a portion of the funds for substance abuse services to pay for families to participate in a family-strengthening program provided either by the local county alcohol and drug commission or similarly qualified public or private vendors.

CA/NCF