FY 2008 G.R.E.A.T. Program

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 curricula help students develop values and practice behaviors that will help them avoid destructive activities. G.R.E.A.T. program staff coordinate project activities with federal, regional, state, and local agencies, as well as individuals from community and civic groups. The goal of the program is to train criminal justice professionals to deliver a school-based curriculum that teaches life-skills competencies, gang awareness, and violence-avoidance techniques.

The city of Portland Police Department will use the grant funds to educate elementary and middle school students and their families by using a straightforward and direct method to implement all four components of G.R.E.A.T. The curriculum is facilitated weekly by G.R.E.A.T. trained officers, most of whom patrol and police the same areas in which they teach. The Portland Police Department aims to implement the G.R.E.A.T. program in all of Portland's middle schools and in as many elementary schools as resources will allow. The summer component of the program is aimed at high-risk youth, and has been implemented at Boys and Girls clubs, Police Activity League camps, and other sports and housing authority camps. The police department will double the amount of families reached in their G.R.E.A.T. families program to approximately 82 families.

The city of Portland Police Department collaborates with Portland Public Schools, the Boys and Girls Club, the National Guard, youth citizenship summer camps, and several sports activity camps. The department will participate in a National Institute of Justice evaluation of G.R.E.A.T. from 2006 ' 2010. This evaluation will be the primary tool in measuring the impact and perception based outcomes generated by the program. The department will utilize all survey instruments developed and provided by BJA as part of its evaluation process.

CA/NCF