ACE (Adventure Challenge Education)

The OJJDP FY 10 Earmarks Program furthers the Department's mission by providing grants, cooperative agreements, and other assistance authorized by the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974, as amended, to organizations identified in the Conference Report to accompany the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010 (P.L. 111-117), H.R. Conf. Rep. No. 111-366 at 702-714.

Adventure Challenge Education (ACE) is a gang intervention program that will take place at Camp Fowler in Orefield PA (owned and operated by Valley Youth House) over the course of five consecutive weekends (Friday evening after school through Sunday evening). The program will be repeated throughout the year. The goal is to reduce delinquent behavior and victimization among gang-involved youth. The target population is high risk, gang-involved youth ages 13 -17 to be referred by the Lehigh and Northampton County Juvenile Probation Departments. OJJDP funding will underwrite the implementation of the program for a total of seven cohorts of youth with an average of 12 youth in each group. Youth will participate in therapeutically-based exercises using the camp's adventure course, as well as didactic learning and discussion using the POWER (Proving Others Wrong Empowerment Resources) curriculum. The short-term outcomes will include the development of life goals and improved decision making and communication skills. The long term outcomes will include reduced recidivism and gang involvement. Progress will be measured through self-report, feedback from families and probation officers and the achievement of short and long term outcome measures. NCA/NCF