Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program for the District of Columbia (RAMP-DC)

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 to transition successfully from incarceration to the community. OJJDP will provide grants to support mentoring and other transitional services essential to reintegrating juvenile offenders into their communities. Grants will be used to mentor juvenile offenders during secure confinement, through transition back to the community, and post-release; to provide transitional services to assist them in their reintegration into the community; and to support training in offender and victims issues. This program is authorized by the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011, Pub. L. 112-110.

The Ready to Achieve Mentoring Program for the District of Columbia (RAMP-DC) will adapt Paving the Way to Work: A Guide to Career-Focused Mentoring for Youth with Disabilities and lessons from existing RAMP sites to provide career-focused mentoring to approximately 150 youth ex-offenders, ages 12 to 17, including those with disabilities, for six months of detention through community reentry. The Institute for Educational Leadership's Center for Workforce Development will work with the DC Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services and its Service Coalitions (Progressive Life Center and East of the River Clergy, Police, Community Partnership) to provide group, peer, and one-on-one mentoring. Youth will participate in career preparation-focused meetings, peer-supported goal setting, and one-on-one mentor meetings with Individualized Mentoring Plans (IMPs). IMPs will include youth's personal, educational, career, and reentry goals, including related support services. The program will increase the number of youth ex-offenders with trained mentors working towards avoiding arrest, and developing transition plans for work, postsecondary school, and/or vocational training. The short-term and intermediate outcomes will be documented by the numbers of mentors trained, youth participating in program activities, IMPs completed, individual goals met, transition support services provided, and recidivism rates.
CA/NCF