FY 2022 STOP School Violence Specialized Training and Technical Assistance Program

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, STOP School Violence Specialized Training and Technical Assistance Program, hosted by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. At this time, it's my pleasure to introduce David Adams, Senior Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance for some welcoming remarks and to begin the presentation. David?
DAVID ADAMS: Thanks, Daryl. My name is David Adams and I'm a Senior Policy Advisor with the Bureau of Justice Assistance. I currently oversee the Students, Teachers, Officers Preventing School Violence or STOP School Violence Program. Today's webinar is to go over the basics of our new solicitation, which is a specialized training and technical assistance program. We'll go over the program eligibility, solicitation categories, things to keep in mind when you're drafting your application, a few FAQs, and we'll provide some resources available for grant applicants, and then finally we'll complete with some questions. Next. Here on this slide, you see a little bit of background about the STOP TTA--Specialized TTA Program. It's designed to improve K through 12 school security by providing students and teachers with tools they need to recognize and respond quickly to and help prevent acts of violence and ensure a positive school climate. This specialized training and technical assistance program is intended to enhance the capacity of educational and other professionals who work with school-aged populations to recognize a combination of factors that may lead to school violence and address the service needs of those students. Next slide. Eligibility for this solicitation is on this slide. It's similar to the eligibility for our STOP School Violence Program. We do include state governments in the eligibility for this TTA program because there are many states that have school safety centers that have the capacity to deliver training, not only in their state but as well as statewide--nationwide. And also institutions of higher education that are state-supported institutions also have that capability and they normally would apply as a state government entity. Next slide.
A little information about the solicitation categories. The solicitation has three categories. The first is training and technical assistance for law enforcement who work in schools and/or with school-aged populations. This one, you'll see in the solicitation, has a list of types of training that you can propose to deliver that would assist law enforcement or probation officers that work in a school setting. Do not necessarily have to create new training that get into these topics if you already have training and you're looking for the ability to deliver this for free to schools around the country. You would describe what your plan is for delivery of the various topics that are covered in the solicitation. And just to name a few of those, incident reporting and data collection; procedural justice; de-escalation and conflict resolution; child development; teen dating violence and sexual assault; FERPA, which is the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act; the Individual Education Programs, including training on Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and requirements the SROs must make reasonable modifications when necessary to interact with young people with disabilities; civil rights and protected classes; as well as constitutional rights. It could be bullying prevention, a whole host of training that is listed in the solicitation under this category.
For all three of the categories that are listed here, there are specific deliverables that have to be completed by anyone who is awarded under that singular category. And all training provided with BJA funding must provide a mechanism for pre- and post-testing of the knowledge gained and other impact assessments. All TTA providers must coordinate with the National Center for School Safety, which is our National STOP TTA Center, and BJA's National Training and Technical Assistance Center. All providers must develop an online project management tool that helps government management of the project to which BJA has access. And all providers must include the use of students' perspectives and parents' perspectives in the development of aiding new resources and activities that you would be creating. You may ask this question, if you have a national TTA provider, why are you hosting a solicitation for another TTA provider or in this case three, because we would be making one award under each category to a different entity under each category? The answer to that question is the National Center for School Safety, which is a project of the University of Michigan's School of Public Health, is--their main task is providing training and technical assistance to STOP grantees, both BJA STOP grantees and the COPS Office STOP grantees. So if they do a learning community, it has to be open to the STOP grantees first, and that usually means that all the slots are taken up by STOP grantees. This solicitation enables us to put training and technical assistance out to--on a nationwide basis for anyone who's looking for the particular types of services that's being provided under this solicitation, and that's something that the National Center for School Safety is not tasked with doing under their current cooperative agreement.
Category 2 is training and technical assistance to improve responses to students in crisis and Category 3 is school-based community violence intervention training and technical assistance. Next slide. So I talked a little bit about Category 1 and what the purpose of Category 1 is. The award for this category is up to $2 million. It is a 24-month performance period and it starts on October 1 of this year. Next slide. A little bit more about this category is on this slide. You'll provide technical assistance to STOP-based grantees who are using funds to implement specialized training for law enforcement. That's specifically related back to something that was added to the site-based solicitation this year. There was a whole list of law enforcement-based training that is part of the site solicitation this year. That's something that was not there in the past and therefore is not something that the national TTA provider, the National Center for School Safety, is currently doing. While they do create resources that assist law enforcement in school setting, it is not to the extent that is being asked for in the new solicitation, which is why this category is here.
Something else to consider is--and you'll hear more about this as I go on. All of the work that is being done under this solicitation must be coordinated not only with the National Center for School Safety but with other Department of Justice bureaus that are doing similar work, such as OJJDP, the COPS Office, as well as the Department of Education, Health and Human Services, and the Department of Homeland Security because all four of those federal agencies are involved in the school safety realm and we do not want to duplicate something that is already available for delivery to schools and school districts and states--in school safety. Obviously, we are expecting the TTA provider to have staff that have the sufficient expertise for the execution of the projects that we're asking to be completed. As I mentioned before and I'll continue to mention throughout the course of the solicitation, the training is to be delivered by request nationwide, and you can find out more about the deliverables for this specific category on pages six through eight of the solicitation. Next slide.
Category 2 has an objective to enhance the capacity of school resource officers and educational professionals to identify students that may have some behavioral health conditions or developmental disabilities, and use best practice models to provide services to meet the individual needs of these students to effectively manage the student population during a crisis. And it includes identifying and de-escalating bystander reactions in a developmentally and culturally appropriate manner, which includes the juvenile justice and behavioral health professionals. This solicitation has a $2 million award--up to $2 million and also has a 24-month performance period that starts on October 1 of 2022. Next slide. A little bit more about this category. You'll develop resources for schools that currently have SRO programs or are interested in implementing an SRO mental health clinician co-response model, where if you have the type of student population mentioned in this category, then not only an SRO would be responding but you'd also have a mental health professional as part of the team to respond to anything that may occur in that student population. You'll be creating a program model and a toolkit that will be used for implementation nationwide. And you'll identify and develop training for such a model and we would require that you implement the training in at least five sites as a pilot program. And the deliverables for this category can be found on pages eight and nine of the solicitation. Next side.
Finally, Category 3 is looking for a provider to implement a school-based community violence intervention training into the school environment. We're looking for tools that help law enforcement officers and education professionals to recognize and address a combination of individual, relationship, community, and societal factors that can contribute to the risk of youth violence. Since efforts to make school buildings and classrooms physically more secure can create certain vulnerabilities and increase the opportunity for sexual assault victimization, we're asking that you focus on developing resources for schools to assess, evaluate, and address those potential risks. The funding level for this is up to $1 million and it also has a 24-month project period. Next slide. You'll be coordinating with local jurisdictions, both mental health and behavioral health service providers. We expect the TTA provider would both be aware of and communicate with other key overlapping initiatives in the jurisdictions in which they're providing services. And you'll also be coordinating, as with the other two categories, with federal partners, including the Department of Education, HHS, Office on Violence Against Women, to ensure there's no duplication of effort. You'll serve as a coordinator with these federal partners and support strategies related to mental, behavioral health in school settings, and have coordination across various interest groups. You'll develop regular meetings to allow for dialogue among the partners involved that, at a minimum, would include federal partners, public and private partnerships, and special interest groups, peer support community groups, things like that, and other STOP TTA providers. Next slide.
Some things to keep in mind to include in your application. There is a requirement for all three categories that you include a training delivery chart. An example of that is included in the solicitation. You must provide key personnel resumes as part of the application, your subject matter experts and those who may be managing the project. You also must include a program timeline for any major milestones, deliverables, with the application. You also must include a Disclosure of Proposed Subrecipients. In other words, if you're partnering with other organizations and you're making subawards to those organizations, you must include, as a separate attachment with your application, a disclosure that lists those subrecipients, where they are located, and the amount that you would be subawarding to them. That also is something that is in your budget. This makes it easy for us because we have to provide that information being part of their funding recommendation to the AAG. You'll also provide a training delivery chart, and if you have additional deliverables that you're proposing to implement beyond what is included in the solicitation, we ask that you also include that as part of the application. Next slide.
You'll be working closely with me at BJA and other subject matter experts at BJA in the areas of mental health. My colleagues, they will be reviewing some of the information that you'll be submitting to me for approval. We'll have at least monthly regularly scheduled voice or video calls. All training provided with BJA funding must provide, as I said before, mechanisms for pre- and post-testing. And, as I mentioned earlier, you'll also be coordinating with our main TTA provider at the National Center for School Safety and our training and technical assistance center also known as NTTAC. And I've also mentioned previously that you'll be providing an online project management tool that allows BJA to be able to see its--we have a particular name for it at BJA. I think it's a dashboard, where we can keep track of the project and the progress that's being made. And, as I also mentioned, we want to include student and parent perspectives in the development of any new resources that you're providing or new activities that you're creating as part of your project. Next slide.
Also, when you're putting together your application, your abstract, and your project narrative, please be clear and make concise statements that provide a thorough understanding of why you're developing or making enhancements and implementation of the program category. You'll describe anticipated impact on the community that you're targeting. In this case, it's a school safety community. But if you're coming in for Category 1, which has a law enforcement focused, Category 2, which focuses both on education professionals and law enforcement, you just need to be clear on why it's important that you're reaching those communities and how the proposed project will do that. You also want to describe successful methods that you'll use for delivering the TTA. And you'll talk about the importance of your strategies that your experts will be using to engage the field. And you'll, finally, talk about the impact of best practice approaches and planning and implementation on the program's outcomes and the role that your training and technical assistance will have in improving outcomes across the field. Next slide.
So, here, we have some frequently asked questions. "Are competitive programs under the solicitation meant for entities to apply to receive training and technical assistance?" The answer to that is no. We want you to be the ones that are providing the services to the field. This is strictly a solicitation where you will be developing resources and pushing them out to the field for use. "Can you apply under more than one category?" No. An entity that makes an application must apply under only one category, and it would be the category that they have the most experience and expertise in to deliver services to the field. Next slide.
So in your application, you need to--you can find under Application and Submission Information on page 12, specifically in order to make it to the peer review, you need to include the abstract, the narrative, and complete the web-based budget worksheet and budget narrative. But your application must include all of the items that are on the slide, which includes your abstract, your narrative, your budget worksheet narrative, the training delivery chart, the timelines, your resumes, and all of the additional attachments that are listed in the solicitation to be a complete application, and that can include your tribal resolutions, if applicable. If there's anything that you’re being required or asked to submit that does not apply to you, that may be keeping you from going from one step to the next step in your application submission, just create a document that says not applicable and upload that, and that will allow you to go to the next step. So let's say that the portion of the upload that says tribal resolution, you're not a tribal agency, so you're not require to submit a tribal resolution but it's not letting you go to the next step, then just submit a document that says not applicable. And once that's uploaded, it'll go to the next step. And that would be the same for any document that they're asking you for that doesn't apply to you.
You are required, however, to include with your application also a documentation of any similar awards--I mean, similar solicitations to which you've applied in the last 12 months so that we can do our due diligence in ensuring that you're not being funded to do something by multiple agencies that are doing the same work. "Can my organization propose to partner with other entities?" Absolutely. In many cases, we have training and technical assistance providers that work with partners. You have subject matter experts in one area but you're partnering with an organization that has subject matter experts in other areas of which are crosscutting in your project. So, absolutely, we allow you to partner. Only one entity can be the fiscal agent, however, so you would need to determine who is going to be the applicant, and then the other folks would be your partner subawards or however you determine how you're going to apply. Next slide.
Some BJA resources that are available for grant applicants can be found here. First, Grants.gov. If you have any technical issues while you're submitting your SF-424 or the SF-LLL, these toll-free numbers are available to you seven days a week, except on federal holidays. There's also the web-based support, and there's also an email address. And these provide information on available federal funding opportunities for various federal agencies. Next slide. For technical assistance with JustGrants, you can use this information. You know, you do have a two-step process for applying. The SF-424 and SF-LLL are submitted on one day to Grants.gov. Once you have done that, then it opens up JustGrants for you to be able to upload the rest of the application. So if you encounter any technical issues with either one of those, you can use the information for JustGrants or for Grants.gov on being able to get assistance with those difficulties. Next slide.
There's also an OJP Response Center. We have an email address. There's a web chat opportunity. You can call a toll-free number. They're open from 10:00 to 6:00, Monday through Friday. We also urge you to subscribe to email notifications of new funding opportunities and other resources. You can sign up to receive the twice monthly JUSTINFO newsletter, as well as the weekly Funding News email. And you can do those at the website that's on this slide, ojp.gov/subscribe. And be sure to select Grants/Funding as an area of interest. Next slide.
So here's the deadlines for this solicitation. It is a 45-day application period from the date that it was posted. So this application has a Grants.gov deadline of June 3rd at 8:59 p.m. eastern time. And that's because the center closes at 9:00. So you would need to submit prior to 9:00 on June the 3rd. And then your complete application with all of the attachments would be submitted in JustGrants on June 10th of this year at 8:59 p.m. If you encounter any difficulties, the solicitation gives you information on how to make an appeal if you are not able to apply by the deadline. I strongly recommend that you start uploading your forms for the various deadlines at least 72 hours before the deadline, so that if you do encounter problems, there is ample time to resolve those problems ahead of the deadline. Next slide.
So some resources that you can use for your grant applications. The OJP Funding Resource Center, DOJ Grants Financial Guide. That's very important for you to know the financial guidelines that you'll be required to comply with if you receive an award. The Grants Management Online Training is another important training to take advantage of. And there's an OJP Grant Application Resource Guide that will also be very helpful if this is the first time you've applied to BJA for grant funding. Next slide. You can stay connected with us. You can text OJP, text your email to subscribe for email updates. Social media, you have our Facebook or our Twitter handle. And for additional funding opportunities, you can go to our website and just click Funding Opportunities and you'll see a list of all of our solicitations that are available to you. Next slide. So important contacts. Our Solicitation Content Assistance line, Grants.gov again, and JustGrants. All of these numbers are here and their hours of operation, so if you need additional assistance. Next slide. And now we come to the time for questions. So I will turn it back over to Daryl and he will guide me through any questions that have been submitted.
DARYL FOX: Great. Thanks so much, David. Just a reminder to everybody on today's webinar that the PowerPoint recording and transcript for today will be posted to the BJA website. So you'll get an email for whoever registered when those items are posted. So be on the lookout if you need to go back to reference anything discussed today. If you do have a question, bottom right of your screen, hit the three dots, hit Q&A, and then send to all panelists, and we'll go through those during the remaining time we have today. In the meantime, I'm just going to leave this slide up for most of the Q&A portion. If you do have any questions that can't be answered today or you may think of after today's webinar, you can contact these three entities, you know, the OJP Response Center for solicitation assistance or the two technical programmatic entities, Grants.gov and JustGrants, here. So, David, the first question coming in is "Can the funds be used on any security infrastructure, such as security systems or the like?"
DAVID ADAMS: No. This specifically is for delivering training and technical assistance to the field, various topics of training which are listed in the solicitation. It sounds like that question is more of a question for our site-based solicitation. And, in that case, if it's security--physical security, it would be more appropriate for the COPS Office School Violence Prevention Program or SVPP solicitation that is currently open and will close, I believe, on June the 20th. If they need more information about that, they can go to the COPS website and find information on how to apply for that project program.
DARYL FOX: Thanks for that, David. No more questions in the queue at this time. We'll just hang on for a few more moments here. Bottom right side of your screen, there's a Q&A button. Just go ahead and enter it in that box. “The RFP mentions that it's open to small business as eligibility, Is there a limit on how small, if there's only a few employees with a particular company?"
DAVID ADAMS: I'm not aware of there being a limit on this under that eligibility. No, I don't think there's a minimum or a maximum for that. The slide just mentioned--go back to eligibility slide, Daryl. It said--I think it's nonprofit other than small businesses. I think that may be exclusionary of small businesses but I don't know. I will tell you that the eligibility definitions changed a little bit as we transitioned from the Grants.gov to JustGrants application submission. What I may need to do is actually get clarification on that specific line. Typically, I would just put for-profit organizations as an eligible applicant. The way it was worded this time, it says "other than small businesses," so you could have a nonprofit or a for-profit as a small business. Typically, if you're a for-profit, you have to agree to not make a profit if you're awarded under a BJA grant or OJP grant for that matter. I may need to get further clarification on that particular one however just to see why it says other than small businesses.
DARYL FOX: That's the end of the questions in the Q&A at this time. We'll just hang on for a few more moments if anybody does--so another one did come in, David. "Would you need to have MOUs with every school district you plan to train through this funding?"
DAVID ADAMS: So there is no requirement for an MOU. And what the solicitation says is that you would be--it's not so much that you're coming in with an application to know upfront which schools you're delivering training to, because you would be receiving training requests from the field. Now, for the one category that has a requirement that you deliver training in at least five sites, I believe that's Category 2, you're not required to have an MOU but would be helpful to know, if you've already picked the five sites that you want to deliver that training to, then you could have a Letter of Support from those districts, but it's not a requirement.
DARYL FOX: That seems to be the end of the queue again. So hold on one more moment here. If you do have a question, please enter that in. I'll go ahead and put the stay connected slide back up in case anybody wants to visit social sites, get email updates, or just visit the BJA website to look for the list of current funding opportunities including this one.
DAVID ADAMS: And I will say that, you know, there is a number on the solicitation, if you have questions during the application process, it goes through our call center. And if there's a question the call center can't answer, they will reach out to me to provide an answer, so you will get a response back in a timely manner if you don't think of something now, but as you're developing your application, you get a question that you need resolved.
DARYL FOX: Okay. Thanks so much, David. So with that, we'll go ahead and end today's program. So on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Assistance and our panelist, we want to thank you for joining today's webinar. This will end today's presentation.