FY 2010 JMHCP Grant Program

The Bureau of Justice Assistance's (BJA) Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program (JMHCP) is funded through the Mentally Ill Offender Treatment and Crime Reduction Act of 2004 (Public Law 108-414), which was reauthorized in 2008 (Public Law 110-416). The primary purpose of JMHCP is to increase public safety by facilitating collaboration among the criminal justice, juvenile justice, and mental health and substance abuse treatment systems to increase access to mental health and other treatment services for those individuals with mental illness or co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. Jurisdictions are eligible to apply for planning, planning and implementation, or expansion funding through JMHCP.

Weber Human Services, the fiscal agent, applied for $200,000 in federal funds (to supplement local match) through the JMHCP Category 3: Expansion grant program. Through well-established, coordinated procedures and delivery of evidence-based practices, Project Empower will utilize this funding to expand the capacity of the program to reduce juvenile recidivism and the serious mental health and substance abuse symptoms of identified, early-intervention juveniles.

The existing collaborative and service delivery structure has already been shown to reduce juvenile recidivism, mental health symptoms, and improve over-all functioning of juvenile offenders served. Through this proposed expansion, Project Empower will screen, assess, and serve an additional 30-35 juveniles demonstrating clear need of intervention services due to co-occurring symptoms.

CA/NCF