This program furthers the Department's mission by providing grants and cooperative agreements for training and technical assistance to organizations that OJJDP designates.
This Project will advance OJJDPs Enhancing Youth Access to Justice Initiative (EYAJI) to develop effective, statewide, well-resourced, juvenile defense delivery systems; to help states and localities adopt policies and practices that enhance juvenile defense infrastructure; and, to support the development of state or regional resource centers that provide information, training, policy development, and data collection. The overall objective of the Initiative is to provide national training and technical assistance (TTA) that focuses on the need for specialization in juvenile defense, remedies gaps in practice, and trains stakeholders on strategies for improvement and reform.
NJDCs plan includes five interwoven strategies: (1) TTA to promote comprehensive statewide juvenile defense system reform; (2) TTA to local, state, regional, and tribal defenders and defender systems to enhance the quality of legal representation and increase juvenile defense specialization; (3) Community building, leadership development, networking, and peer to peer learning opportunities to juvenile defenders at local, state, tribal, regional, and national levels; (4) Marketing, outreach, networking, and publications to educate the public and assist stakeholders in improving juvenile defense practice and policy; and (5) Develop civil legal services for youth in post-disposition and re-entry, and addressing the collateral consequences of juvenile adjudications at host organizations across the country.
NJDC will continue to work cooperatively with and provide site-specific intensive technical assistance to EYAJI state and regional grantees to ensure the new models of juvenile defense delivery are effective, developmentally appropriate, and guided by best practice and the highest juvenile defense standards. And, NJDC will continue to train and work with the six Juvenile Post-
Disposition Re-Entry Legal Fellows deployed to remove legal barriers for youth in host
organizations across the country.
NCA/NCF
