Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2019, $500,000)
The Youth Gang Desistance/Diversion Grant Program supports the efforts of jurisdictions struggling with high levels of youth gang violence to implement one or more components of the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model as part of a community- and data-driven desistance/diversion response to gang-related crime and violence. This program is authorized by Pub. L. No. 116-6 Stat. 13, 113.
In 2011, the Center for Children and Youth Justice formed the Leadership, Intervention, & Change (LINC) steering committee in accordance with the OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model in King County, Washington. The current project, based upon the completion of a community assessment and development of an implementation plan, spans the underserved area of King County. Funding will allow LINC to add capacity, and fill gaps in and enhance services to young people in order to support and enhance current and ongoing implementation of Comprehensive Gang Model strategies to support young people involved in or at risk of experiencing gang violence throughout the region, and enhance street outreach service provision across the region with a special capacity to reach both adjudicated and non-adjudicated youth in a local community setting. The overarching aim of the LINC program is to reduce gang-related criminal activities and violence through the implementation of the Comprehensive Gang Model, as well as to implement a mix of strategies to support gang desistance and/or diversion for young people in King County. The goals of the program are to (1) sustain regional implementation of the evidence-based OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model in King County as a strategy for gang desistance and diversion, including continued coordinated service provision through three multidisciplinary intervention teams; (2) expand and enhance the implementation of prevention and intervention program components to address the needs of the target population of youth and families; (3) expand and enhance community awareness about gang violence and its negative effects throughout King County; and (4) decrease gang-related and violent crime and victimization across the project region. Note: This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law, and complies with Part 200 Uniform Requirements - 2 CFR 200.210(a)(14). CA/NCF