Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2009, $567,419)
The Second Chance Act (P.L. 110-199) authorizes grants to government agencies and nonprofit groups to provide employment assistance, substance abuse treatment, housing, family programming, mentoring, victims support, and other services to help adult and juvenile ex-offenders make a successful transition from incarceration to the community. In support of the goals of the Second Chance Act, OJJDP will provide grants to support mentoring and other transitional services essential to reintegrating juvenile offenders into the community. The grants will be used for mentoring juvenile offenders during confinement, through transition back to the community, and post-release; transitional services to assist the reintegration of youth offenders into the community; and training in offender and victims issues. The legislative authority for this initiative can be found in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 2002 and the Department of Justice Appropriations Act, 2009, Pub. L. 111-8.
The purpose of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Buffalo's Second Chance Mentoring Project is to help 100 youth a year realize productive and positive lives. The population to be served is among the most at risk in the City of Buffalo for academic failure; alcohol, tobacco and substance abuse; premature sexual experimentation; violence, gang activity and juvenile delinquency. Club staff, working with community based partners and volunteer mentors, will engage youth in mentoring programs focused on improving their performance in reading, math, and science; so that they improve achievement on NYS Learning Standard assessments and graduate high school. Programs and mentoring will be offered to stimulate their curiosity in careers so that they are motivated to continue in higher education; stop risky behavior; and "righting" their character so that they may resist the lure of delinquency and reconnect with their community; thus resulting in a reduction in recidivism. These goals and objectives relate to the performance measures of the Second Chance Mentoring Program. They will be measured through attendance records, pre and post-tests, report cards, mentor and parent surveys, journalizing, and other quantitative and qualitative measures of both outcomes and processes. CA/NCF