Empowering Juveniles Reentering the Community

The Fiscal Year 2017 Smart on Juvenile Justice: Enhancing Youth Access to Justice Initiative aims to further OJJDP’s mission by funding efforts to (1) develop and implement standards of policy and practice to effectively manage well-resourced, statewide juvenile indigent defense systems; (2) develop state or regional resource centers that will help state, tribal, and local juvenile defense systems enhance the quality of legal representation, leverage resources, and collect and analyze data to measure the effectiveness of juvenile defense initiatives; and, (3) support community-based nonprofit organizations that provide direct reentry services, mentoring, and reentry planning to youth in secure confinement or out-of-home placement who are transitioning, or have recently transitioned, back to their families and communities. The goal of Category Three is to fund community-based service providers to offer and deliver reentry services to youth who are reintegrating into communities following secure confinement or out-of-home placement. Awards under Category Three will be made pursuant to Section 211 of the Second Chance Act, 42 USC 17531; Pub. L. No. 115-31, 131 Stat. 135, 204.

Tuscaloosa Family Resource Center, Inc., d.b.a. Tuscaloosa’s One Place (TOP), A Family Resource Center will create the Juveniles Supported Through Integrated Community Engagement to help youth reintegrate into their community and reduce recidivism among participants. The project will implement wrap around services and mentoring to provide supportive services to juvenile justice involved youth. TOP will partner with community and social service agencies to provide supplementary services to program youth: the University of Alabama School of Law Public Interest Institute will provide additional reentry services to participants through the recruitment and placement of a Juvenile Reentry Fellow; the Tuscaloosa City and Tuscaloosa County School systems will provide services to school age youth in their schools; Shelton State Community College will provide GED education and vocational training for participants in the program; Family Counseling Service will provide substance abuse assessments and treatment as well as individual and group counseling for program participants; and, Indian Rivers Mental Health Center will provide mental health assessment and treatment for youth and their families.
CA/NCF