OJJDP FY 2014 Youth Violence Prevention Technical Assistance Program

OJJDP's State and Community Development Awards program was established to provide grants and cooperative agreements to organizations that OJJDP has selected for funds in prior years. This program is authorized pursuant to the Department of Justice Appropriations Act, 2015, P.L.113-235. OJJDP recognizes that preventing and ameliorating youth violence requires a shared framework to address the factors that impact violence and victimization at the individual, peer, family, community, and societal levels and promote child and youth well-being and that grantees who work in partnership with OJJDP to address these issues will benefit from targeted technical assistance, including enhanced peer-to-peer support, that will assist them to reach their short- and long-term goals.

Development Services Group, Inc. (DSG) proposes to coordinate, broker and/or provide a full range of comprehensive training and technical assistance (TTA) to the three OJJDP youth violence prevention initiatives. DSG will undertake this through creation of an integrated program platform for TTA; provision of TTA that is specifically responsive to both individual and cross-cutting needs of the sites as determined through an assessment; and by documenting lessons from the challenges and successes and collection of data on performance measures. DSG’s proposal outlines a preliminary work plan to achieve the three primary tasks by which DSG aims to: “mobilize and monitor expert staff and consultants effectively, facilitate communication and coordination among the sites, develop and provide culturally competent, community-driven, and data-driven strategies, and provide evidence-based TTA”. The proposal describes a range of TTA delivery strategies including training, support of peer to peer mentoring and communities of practices, webinars, site-based consultation, and development of online resources, and toolkits. DSG has also assembled a diverse group of subject matter experts (SMEs) to serve as consultants to the project. These SMEs will be a primary resource to the project and means of delivering TTA on an array of individualized and cross-cutting issues including: strengthening multi-sector collaboration; operationalizing links among multiple forms of violence; guiding strategic planning; promoting sustainability and advancing innovative law enforcement and public health approaches to prevention and intervention. CA/NCF

This program furthers the Department's mission by providing grants and cooperative agreements for training and technical assistance to organizations that OJJDP designates.

The purpose of the Youth Violence Prevention (YVP) Technical Assistance Program is to provide high quality, cost effective, coordinated training and technical assistance resources available to the jurisdictions funded through OJJDP’s YVP and Safe and Thriving Initiatives. The ultimate aim of this work is to support public safety efforts to reduce violence and promote the well-being of children and youth, families and communities in which they reside by improving community capacity to address all forms of violence.

This supplement will allow OJJDP through the Development Services Group (DSG) to continue the national level TTA coordination to benefit OJJDP's youth violence site grantees. DSG will continue to promote alignment and learning across the YVP network and sites through strategies that include: peer to peer support, convening regular calls with sites, partners and OJJDP staff, and organizing strategic planning meetings.

NCA/NCF