Award Information
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2006, $122,974)
The Gang Resistance Education and Training (G.R.E.A.T.) program is a life-skills competency program designed to provide students with the skills they need to avoid gang pressure and youth violence. G.R.E.A.T.'s violence prevention curriculum helps students develop values and practice behaviors that will assist them to avoid destructive activities. The G.R.E.A.T. program coordinates with federal, regional, state and local agencies, as well as individuals from community and civic groups. The goal of the G.R.E.A.T. program is to train law enforcement officers in a school-based curriculum in which the officers provide instruction to school-aged children in life skill competencies, gang awareness, and anti-violence techniques. Training in the core G.R.E.A.T. program is provided to officers from any state or local law enforcement agency.
The Newport News Police Department, in conjunction with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Virginia Peninsula, and the U. S. Army (Ft. Eustis) will use the grant funds to center efforts around a one-week summer camp for 12-17 year old children who are susceptible to gang influence and involvement.
Specifically, the grant funds will be used to:
1. Hire one full-time officer to serve as the G.R.E.A.T. coordinator for the middle schools, to administer Police Academy for Youth, and to coordinate the summer camp program, as well as other youth-related prevention programs in the department.
2. Implement an experimental summer camp program for 2006 that will serve 120 students in the middle and high schools.
3. Implement the G.R.E.A.T. Family Component into the existing Citizens' Police Academy for Youth.
4. Improve the existing G.R.E.A.T. Program at Huntington Middle School by providing incentives to the participating students and expand the G.R.E.A.T. Program to the other seven middle schools.
CA/NCF