2017 Puyallup Tribal Youth Program

The Justice Department's grant-making components have created a streamlined approach for federally recognized Tribes, Tribal consortia, Alaska Native villages and corporations, as well as authorized tribal designees to apply for Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 funding opportunities. The Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation (CTAS) serves as a single solicitation for existing tribal government-specific grant programs administered by the Office of Justice Programs (OJP), the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) and the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW). The CTAS solicitation is designed to assist tribes with addressing crime and public safety issues in a comprehensive manner. The CTAS grant-application process was inspired by and developed after consultation with tribal leaders, including sessions at the Justice Department's Tribal Nations Listening Session in 2009, and has been updated based on continued tribal consultations and listening sessions. The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) provides awards under CTAS Purpose Area 9--Tribal Youth Program (TYP) to federally recognized tribes to develop and implement programs that support and enhance Tribal efforts to prevent and control juvenile delinquency and strengthen juvenile justice system for American Indian/Alaska Native youth.

The Puyallup tribe's youth are suffering from the high influx of drugs and violence on tribal lands combined with the legacy of inter-generational trauma. The Tribe has a culturally sensitive program of youth interventions (Gathering of Native Americans ("GONA") and the Healing of the Canoe, (HOC)), that provide pro-social activities and life-skill building that directly assist youth and families in healing and building resiliency. The Puyallup tribe will build on current implementations of GONA and HOC within their culture program to direct youth at-risk of, or involved with, the tribal juvenile justice system. To accomplish this, the Puyallup tribe will: 1) Refresh GONA/HOC to include training and activities informed by current “trauma-informed” best practices, including research regarding Adverse Childhood Experiences; 2) Leverage well established community based culturally specific assets to sustain those implementations beyond the period of federal funding, particularly the “Canoe Journey” and a new Puyallup Tribe “Children of the River Child Advocacy Center”; and 3) Link updated HOC/GONA implementations and community assets to revised juvenile justice procedures and protocols to build the following systems improvements:
a. Provide early mental health screening for justice system involved youth and referral to mental health/substance abuse treatment via partnership Memorandums of Agreement.
b. Update Case Plan Protocols with life-skill building activities.
c. Align case plans with counseling goals and traditional healing.
d. Increase diversion options.
e. Generate formative and summative data to update codes and protocols.
In general, Puyallup will use a multidisciplinary process to provide a “coordinated systems response” to create sustainable improvements that promote the youths’ community attachment, sense of security and competency, and healing. CA/NCF