Expansion of Juvenile Gang Prevention and Intervention

The Fulton County Government submits this grant application, Office of Justice Programs Community Based Violence Intervention and Prevention Initiative (16.045, O-BJA-2022-171282) to the Bureau of Justice Assistance for Category 4: CVIPI Expansion and Enhancement for County Governments (C-BJA-2022-00114-PROD) in support of the Gang Intervention Prevention program administered by the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office (FCDAO). On page 11 of the Narrative includes a priority consideration. ) Hire Juvenile Program Manager (County position specification executive assistant) to work with the Juvenile Court Prosecutors, to review case files and make recommendations; this staff will be familiar with partners providing community solutions; (2) Hire Community Resource Specialist focused on relationship with community experiencing increase in violence; (3) Partner with Behavioral Health Consultant, Dr. Piligrim to build trauma-informed therapy groups and supportive services for mentors and parents, discuss case plan for restoration and rehabilitative coping skills and crisis management to youth;  (4) Partner with Chris 180 trauma-informed therapy for children and supportive services to parents; (5) Partner with Credible Messengers, out of the US Attorney’s Office program of  formerly incarcerated, who provide mentoring to youth; (6) Partner with the At Promise Center, diversion programming for court exposed juveniles with the Atlanta Police Foundation; (6) Two programs facilitated out of the FCDA’s office Jr. DA and LEADS, leadership program in Fulton County schools; (7)Partner with FCA Atlanta Leadership Enrichment working with Coaches and summer programming; (8) Through a mixed-methods approach, Dr. Dean Dabney, a tenured Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Georgia State will gather and synthesize information on program impacts and cost effectiveness, allowing Fulton County to understand more about evidence-based therapeutic services impacts both individual and community-level factors. Fulton County is 534 square miles, with 15 municipalities, and is the largest county in the state with its largest city, Atlanta, the capital of the state of Georgia. The race percentages of the Fulton County population are approximately 44% Black, 39% White, 7% Asian, 2% two or more races, and 7% Hispanic/Latino. Atlanta has a complicated history of widespread segregation, biased legislation, and racial subordination.  Enhance existing working group to better serve communities experiencing unprecedented violence; through a collaborative, multimethod, data-collection, and analysis approach, conduct a needs assessment to better understand root causes of community violence; and place priority on building and maintaining work and accomplishments.