FY 2023 Collaborative Crisis Response and Intervention Training Program for Law Enforcement

Transcript also available as a PDF

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, “Collaborative Crisis Response and Intervention Training Program for Law Enforcement,” hosted by the Bureau of Justice Assistance.” At this time, it's my pleasure to introduce Maria Fryer, who is the Justice Systems and Mental Health Policy Advisor at the U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Assistance or BJA. She oversees the justice and mental health portfolio, which includes the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program, this Collaborative Crisis Intervention and Training, and the Connect and Protect: Law Enforcement Behavioral Health Response Program, and collaborates with national partners to assist states, local government, and behavioral health organizations to better understand the relationship between the criminal justice system and mental health population, and to create policy and programming that meets the needs of municipalities and the citizens they serve. So with that, Maria, if you'd give the presentation.
MARIA FRYER: Thank you very much, Daryl. And good afternoon, everyone. My name is Maria Fryer and I am here today to give you this presentation, along with my colleagues. We'll start with an overview of today's webinar. So, first, I will introduce the speakers here on the slides.
First, we have State Policy Advisor, Tammy Lovill, who is the State Policy Advisor at BJA's Program Office and she manages the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program, as well as Connect and Protect. And prior to joining BJA, Tammy worked as a Law Enforcement Lead for Maryland's State Administering Agencies, the Governor's Office of Crime Prevention, Youth, and Victim Services. And, next, we have Nikisha Love. And I'm hoping that Nikisha can join us today. She may have been pulled away into another meeting. She has been with the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Program since 2008. She is a Grant Management Specialist. And in this role, she manages and provides guidance in the administration of the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program, the JMHCP, and also the Adult Drug Court Program. And Ms. Love has a strong financial background, as many of the grant managers do. In fact, most of them do have a very strong financial background, and also a background in grant management and administration. Next, we have Rachel Jensen from the IACP. And Rachel is a Senior Project Coordinator at the IACP, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and has been at the Association for over two years. Her past work at the Association includes serving as a Training and Technical Assistance Coordinator for BJA's Byrne Criminal Justice Innovation Program and translating evidence-based crime reduction practices for small and rural law enforcement agencies. Prior to joining the IACP, Rachel was a Research Assistant at George Mason University Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy. Next slide.
So what we're going to do today—here is the overview of our presentation. And so what we're going to do is provide you with an overview of BJA, an overview of the IACP, and also of the Collaborative Crisis Intervention and Training Program. And then after that, we'll discuss the Award Information, the Budget, Application Criteria, followed by the Submission Requirements. And, finally, towards the end of the webinar, we'll have time for Questions and Answers. Next slide.
So a little bit about the Office of Justice Programs. So the Bureau of Justice Assistance is located within the Office of Justice Programs, or as you may know it as OJP. And OJP provides a wide range of services to the criminal justice community in the form of grants, training, technical assistance, and research. And although our focus today is on BJA funding opportunities, there are other opportunities as well, such as those shown on this slide, that offer additional grants and programs to support our shared public safety mission. Next slide.
BJA's mission is to provide leadership and services in grant administration and criminal justice policy development to support state, local, and Tribal justice strategies to achieve safer communities. BJA works with communities, governments, and nonprofit organizations to reduce crime, recidivism, and unnecessary confinement, and promote a safe and fair criminal justice system. Specifically, BJA provides funding to support law enforcement, combat violent and drug-related crime, and combat victimization. Through the development and implementation of policy, services, and sound grant management, BJA strengthens the nation's criminal justice system and restores security in communities. Next slide.
So this is our Director, Karhlton Moore, and he was appointed by President Biden in February of 2022. Director Moore leads BJA's programmatic and policy efforts on providing a wide range of resources, including training and technical assistance to law enforcement, courts, corrections, treatment, reentry, justice information sharing, and community-based partners to address chronic and emerging criminal justice challenges nationwide. On this slide, you can see the offices within BJA under his oversight. Next slide.
So this is really looking at the five major strategic focus areas. In here, you are viewing key approaches that BJA takes to accomplish objectives and their strategic area of focus. Many of these strategies are put into action through grant programs, such as the one that you're attending today, the Crisis Intervention Training Program. So thank you. Next, we are going to turn it over to Rachel at the IACP—no. Actually, wait a minute. I think the next slide is the—we've got one more. The Fund, Educate, Equip, and Partner.
So, again, these are the types of activities that BJA is engaged in through programming, policy, and national initiatives. Next slide.
Now, we're in the right place for Rachel. Okay. So I'm going to hand it over to Rachel at the IACP to tell you a little bit more about how they partner with BJA on this grant program. Rachel.
RACHEL JENSEN: Thanks, Maria. On behalf of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, I just want to say good afternoon to everyone. For those of you not familiar with the IACP, we are a nonprofit organization located in Alexandria, Virginia. Since 1893, the Association has been serving communities worldwide by speaking out on behalf of law enforcement and advancing leadership and professionalism in the policing-profession worldwide. The IACP is the world's largest professional association of police leaders, with more than thirty-two thousand members across 170 countries. IACP membership is open to law enforcement professionals of all ranks, as well as non-sworn leaders across the criminal justice system. And the IACP's mission is to advance the policing profession through advocacy, research, outreach, and education. If you would like more information on our organization, please visit our website at the iacp.org. Should you successfully apply for grant funding, the IACP would serve as your training and technical assistance provider. Currently, IACP is the TTA provider for both the FY21 and FY22 grantee sites. We work closely with the folks from BJA, you heard from and will hear from today. And we would also work closely with you to help you with ongoing technical assistance needs. This could include producing tools and resources as needed to support sites in accomplishing the requirements and deliverables of your grant award. Next slide please.
In order to provide the best TTA to grantee sites, the IACP is partnering with Policy Research Associates, which is nationally known for evidence-based curriculum design and development, as well as conducting research and evaluation. They will be supporting direct TTA efforts with grantee sites and the delivery of CRIT Train-the-Trainer events. The Arc of the United States, which is the largest national community-based organization advocating for and with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities and serving them and their families. They will be supporting direct TTA efforts with the grantee sites by helping them integrate the needs of individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities into their work. And the American Correctional Association is a professional corrections organization composed of individuals, agencies, and organizations involved in all facets of the corrections field. They will be leading the TTA efforts with all correction-based grantee sites. And, finally, we are partnering with the National Policing Institute, which is a nonprofit organization working to positively impact policing practices around reducing violence, community trust, and officer wellness. The National Policing Institute will be working to support the grantee sites through the development of resources and research expertise.
Now, just to give you some examples of the work IACP does to support grantees, we provide coordinated and customized TTA relating to crisis response models, related to behavioral health, law enforcement-based responses to people with mental health disorders, substance use disorders, and intellectual and developmental disabilities. We also disseminate and analyze needs assessment, which is completed by new grantee sites to increase our understanding of each site's needs and customize our TTA response. The IACP will also facilitate peer-to-peer learning opportunities between sites receiving funding from this award and across our wider network. We host an orientation meeting for newly-funded sites. We will produce webinars, training series, and publications for award grantees and the field at large, including the delivery of CRIT Train-the-Trainer opportunities. The IACP will also launch a secure online community of practice exclusively for the CRIT grantee sites and their partners to increase networking opportunities and facilitate information sharing. Through this secure online site, grantees can share resources, ideas, discuss challenges, post and answer questions via a discussion board, read or write blog posts, participate in polls, see upcoming events, network and connect with a directory of other grantees, and more. And then as part of our TTA support, grantee sites will have access to IACP's vast network and full association experience in advancing safer communities through thoughtful and progressive police leadership. And, finally, the IACP will support grantee sites' creation of their implementation plan, which will include a coordinated and documented training approach and development strategy. Together with our partners, the IACP can provide grantees with a broad range of customized targeted training and technical assistance. If you have any questions on the training and technical assistance aspect of this award, I have provided my contact information up on this slide, along with the project team's contact information. And I just want to thank you all for your time today.
MARIA FRYER: Thank you, Rachel. That was very helpful. So this is Maria. I'm going to go ahead and tell you a little bit about the origins of this program and how things started a few years back. So through the academic training initiative, there are several best practice resources to help support and enhance police mental health collaborations. And so part of this Academic Training to Inform Police Response Initiative is to provide training and technical assistance and grant funding, which many of you may already be familiar with. If you currently have or had a CRIT grant award, you may already know about the academic training initiative. So this initiative promotes education and training and model police responses to people with mental health and intellectual and developmental disability, and it provides support to grant-funded sites and helps communities to use evidence-informed best practices during encounters. It is the only
funding source focused on training and education for people with behavioral health conditions and/or intellectual and developmental disability. Next slide.
And through the academic training initiative, there are several best practice resources, as I mentioned. And these are just a few examples of some that were developed back when the academic initiative first started. So this is just a small example. So next what we're going to do is transition to the program itself, which began under this initiative. So a little bit about the Collaborative Crisis Intervention Training. So this initiative seeks to implement crisis response and intervention training to educate and prepare law enforcement and correctional officers, so that they are equipped to appropriately interact with people who have behavioral health conditions or disabilities while completing their job responsibilities in public service and safety. And it is appropriated. Next slide.
Some of the allowable activities under this program are to develop and implement law enforcement and correctional crisis response training programs. Also to enhance academy training on people with disabilities using the CRIT Curriculum. Also to incorporate a trauma-informed approach to improve de-escalation skills and navigate community resources. Next slide.
So the program goals. The goals of the program are here on the slide. To plan, to develop, or to enhance a best practice Crisis Response and Intervention Training Program for officers utilizing BJA's national curriculum. And the Crisis Response and Intervention Training is a shelf-ready curriculum, designed with everything needed to implement. It's a curriculum designed to help communities cover basic topic areas in crisis response. And the program can also help communities enhance what is already underway. And it also provides the information necessary to evaluate and inform future direction. It is a five-day, 40-hour Memphis Model CIT, and it contains a trainers guide, participant guide, slide deck, and it is free to the public. Next slide.
So a little bit about eligible applicants. Eligibility is for applicants—city or township government, county government, Native American tribal governments that are federally recognized, state governments, and other. And I'm going to tell you about other. Next slide.
So the other are public and state-controlled institutions of higher education, on-campus police departments. And BJA will consider applications under which two or more entities would carry out the federal award. However, only one entity may be the applicant. Next slide. So under the program, you can apply under two different categories. This is Category 1. Category 1 is really for law enforcement officers and sheriff's departments that are out on patrol. Next slide.
And the objectives here are to—and just for the purposes of the recording, I'm going to go ahead and read these. I know that you can see them on the slide but I'll go ahead and just basically cover the objectives really quickly. So to analyze existing training and deployment policies and practices in collaboration with local stakeholders and agency staff, including leadership, using relevant data to assess and reevaluate the training needs of the agency and the individuals it serves while on patrol and in detention settings. But, of course, Category 1, as I mentioned, is more geared towards law enforcement who are on patrol. Also to create design and implement a new or enhanced training program in line with BJA's CRIT Curriculum. To adopt and implement new technologies, such as dashboards and usable databases to track training implementation across departments, calls for service for CRIT related events, and responses to calls, including use of force data relative to Crisis Response and Intervention Training. To plan and implement other best practice response models, such as co-responder, mobile crisis, or mobile response teams, case management, and 911 dispatch models using BJA's curriculum. Next slide.
The objectives under Category 1 continued. Seek and deploy other best practice training for officers to increase awareness and understanding of behavioral health conditions, disabilities, and/or traumatic brain injury. Define and track progress measures, as well as short and long-term program implementation as appropriate. Create support by officers and build program support through the development of crisis response awards and other recognition for officers that demonstrate leadership, commitment to, and the importance of specializing in this area of law enforcement. And also to enhance officer knowledge of behavioral health, reentry, and wraparound services, disability resources, and diversion opportunities through the delivery of crisis response training, which includes service partners and associated community agencies as co-trainers. Next slide.
So Category 2 objectives are geared towards correctional officers, probation and parole, and sheriff's. And this is intended for facility-based projects and programs such as those that would be implemented in the jail. Next slide.
So here, the objectives are to perform a problem analysis of training and deployment policies and practices in collaboration with local stakeholders and agency leadership using relevant data. The applicant will use this analysis to understand training, partnership, resources, and deployment needs of both the agency and community. To also implement a jail-based Crisis Intervention Training curriculum, such as the curriculum developed and implemented through the National Institute of Corrections or in partnership with NIC. Seek and deploy other best practice training such as management of withdrawal for individuals with substance use disorders, pharmacology in detention and correctional settings, and working with individuals with behavioral health conditions and disability, to include understanding of the impacts of confinement with individuals with disabilities, as well as recognizing and mitigating trauma in incarcerated populations. Next slide.
So objectives continued under Category 2. To define and track progress measures as well as short, long-term program outcome measures. Program measures may include increased knowledge, skills, improved response, and safer encounters. To also address officer and detainee/inmate safety through increased collaboration and communication between facility leadership and detainee or inmates, and by evaluating the use of cell extractions, restrictive housing, and other tactics that require staff to use control for the environment as opposed to other strategies that don't require physical intervention and have the potential to retraumatize or to escalate. The intention here is to increase strategies around de-escalation, as well as to understand the causes of physical harm to staff and detainees. And then, also, to build positive community relations and trust through increased outreach to citizens, families, and advocates, and stakeholders, including the creation and/or maintenance of volunteer programs in custodial settings. Next slide.
So now we get into a little bit more of the Deliverables for Category 1 and 2. So the deliverables are—there's a planning phase, which is up to 12 months long, to design the training program within the applicant entity in coordination with community partners. Crisis response training for field-based law enforcement, preferably using BJA's CRIT Curriculum as outlined in the implementation. Next slide.
So continuing with the Deliverables. Ongoing collection of data pertaining to program implementation, including the number of officers trained, activities conducted, and data showing effectiveness of the training. Collaboration with BJA's partners to examine program progress and the impact of outcomes to help support sustainability.
Next, we'll get into the Priority Areas. So priority areas for this program, there are basically two priority areas that BJA will consider in making award decisions, and one is how the program will address racial inequities and strategies to reach historically underserved populations and, two, the next slide, is is there a strategy to partner or include the subrecipient with an organization that will provide culturally specific services. Is there capacity in the agency to provide culturally specific services? Perhaps the applicant lives in an ethnic area or enclave and the community may benefit from this focus area. So within these two priority areas, although BJA will consider these and place a priority in way on these two areas, there are lots of things that go into making decisions. And the priority areas are one aspect of the overall project. It also pertains to the peer review process and how well the project scores in the peer review process. But priority area is a very strong focus area for BJA. And these two areas are our priority for this series funding. Next slide.
So this brings us to the next portion of the presentation, the award information. Next slide.
The number of awards that BJA anticipates making will be approximately eight, and the dollar amount for each award is up to $250,000. Most applicants do apply for what is offered, the $250,000. The project period begins, according to the federal fiscal year, October 1, this fall, in 2023. And the project period is up to 36 months. The total amount that BJA intends to award under this program is $2,000,000. And, typically, I know that, yeah. Thanks Daryl. I know that if you've applied to BJA funding before, you might be familiar about—we typically—the amount that's offered, it would be budgeted across the 36 months. So there are some federal agencies where you come back and apply—you only apply for the first year and then you come back and apply again for the next year. But BJA doesn't do it that way. We actually will look for you to budget for that $250,000 across the 36-month period. So I just wanted to make that note for everybody that's thinking about a budget. Okay. Thanks, Daryl. Next slide.
So, as I mentioned earlier in the presentation, I am joined by my colleagues. I don't think Nikisha made it today but I know Tammy's on the line. And so one very important aspect of having a successful program is the successful management of a program. And for many of you listening today who may receive a grant award through this program, your grant manager will assist you with the tasks that you see here in order that you may implement your goals and objectives successfully. And these four bullets are the main items that really just get you jumpstarted right the very beginning. So we just kind of want to highlight these. We're not going to go into a lot of depth around the grant management aspect or the post award steps that you'll need to take. If you're awarded, we'll bring you back in for an orientation and we'll do a deep dive on what happens next. But we thought it would be important to sort of provide you with a high level—oh, great. Okay. So Aja is on as well. And so you're going to be assigned to a very specific grant manager that manages this program and Aja Pappas is on with us today, which is wonderful. And she could be brought in also as a--as a panelist, so that if you have questions because she's managed this program for several years now. And she can enlighten us on the post award information if you have specific questions in that area. Okay. So next slide.
Like I said, just a really high overview of kind of what comes next. So OCFO must clear your budget prior to program implementation. And so, you know, Aja or Aja, I think I'm pronouncing it incorrectly. I'm sorry. She can answer those questions as far as what comes next. And so you must make the changes in JustGrants. Anything that you have to adjust will happen in JustGrants. And the withholdings that come, sometimes, with a new grant program has to be cleared in JustGrants before you can begin work on your program. So it's really important that we mention that, okay? Next slide.
And the program also comes with federal reporting requirements. And we think that's important to mention upfront too. So reporting requirements must be met in order to keep your program up and running. Completing all reporting requirements on time prevents further holds from being placed on your program. And we included this slide so that applicants are able to view the basic reporting requirements and so that they are clear and they understand that reports are part of your grant administration responsibility should you be awarded. Okay.
So the next slide, I'm going to—so in line with talking about sort of the beginning stages of what happens, you're probably thinking also about the budget. And so I'm going to let my colleague, Tammy, take it now. So she's going to cover a little bit about the budget. Like I said, this is super high overview and should you be awarded, we would bring you back and do an orientation where you would get much more into the grants management aspect. But we just thought it'd be really important to provide a little bit of exposure post-award. So I'm going to hand it over to Tammy.
TAMMY LOVILL: Thank you, Maria. So I'm just going to touch on some important aspects of the budget, the first being Unallowable Costs. So in addition to the unallowable cost identified in the DOJ Financial Guide, awards may not fund the following. Monies cannot be used for prizes, rewards, entertainment, trinkets, or any other monetary incentives such as client stipends. Gift cards or vehicles are both unallowable, as well as food and beverages. Next slide.
Cost Sharing and Match requirement. Cost sharing or match is not a requirement for this particular solicitation. Next slide.
Budget and Associated Documentations. Please note that applicants should structure their budgets to the complete the planning phase within 12 months of receiving the final OJP approval of the program's budget. The applicant will need to clearly identify which budget line items are specifically outlined for planning costs. While applicants will be required to submit a budget for the entire 36-month program at the time of the application submission, applicants may revise their budget based on outcomes resulting from the planning phase. Next slide.
The difference between subawards versus contracts. You should carefully review the OJP Grant Application Resource Guide, which is linked in the solicitation, subsection titled "Information on Proposed Subawards," if you have any, and "Proposed Procurement Contracts," again, if you have any planned and the resources linked therein to ensure you properly categorize your cost in these sections. There are different grants, administrative requirements related to each of them. For example, a procurement contract requires full and open competition while a subaward does not. Next slide.
Award Conditions: Notice to Law Enforcement Agencies. Please note that state, local, and university or college law enforcement agencies must be certified by an approved independent credentialing body or have started the certification process to be eligible for the fiscal year 2023 DOJ discretionary grant funding. To become certified, law enforcement agencies must meet two mandatory conditions, which are the agency's use-of-force policies adhere to all applicable federal, state, and local laws and that the agency's use-of-force policies prohibit chokeholds, except in situations where the use of deadly force is allowed by law. For additional information, please refer to the solicitation, specifically on page 15. Next slide.
Additional Award Conditions: Disclosure of High-Risk Grantees. If applicable, submit the DOJ High Risk Disclosure and Justification as an attachment to your application in JustGrants. A high-risk grantee is an award recipient that has received a DOJ high risk designation based on a documented history of unsatisfactory performance, financial instability, management system, or other internal deficiencies. Noncompliance with award terms and conditions on prior awards or is otherwise not responsible. Please see the OJP Grant Application Resource Guide for additional information on this topic. Now, I'm going to hand the presentation back over to Maria.
MARIA FRYER: Thanks, Tammy. Okay. So now we're going to briefly touch on the Application Criteria. Okay. So this slide outlines the application review criteria as applications are reviewed and scored by a panelist subject experts. These are the areas they score and how each section is weighted. Project Design and Implementation has the greatest weight and the biggest part of the overall score. But, as you can see, the Statement of the Problem is important at 15%. The Project Design and Implementation is the largest. Then you have Capabilities and Competencies. Also, the Plan for Collecting Data, which is required for this solicitation's performance measure, five percent, and the Budget, 10 percent. And all of these add up to a total score. So next slide.
So the Basic Minimum Requirements are the required documents in your application submission in order for your application to move forward to the peer review process. I'm wondering if maybe we should have flipped these slides from 46 and 47 because really without submitting your Abstract, Narrative, your Budget, these things here on the slide, the Abstract, the Narrative, and the Budget, the application will not move forward to peer review and it will not be scored according to the review criteria that we just saw on the previous slide. So really important to pay attention to the basic minimum requirements. And I would also suggest that as you're applying, really look into that applicant checklist in the very back of the solicitation, because it's nicely laid out there to use that checklist to ensure that you're not missing anything in your attachments in JustGrants. Next slide.
So although—not BMR requirement or basic minimum requirement, additional documents needed on the web-based form in JustGrants are the project goal, project objective, deliverables, and timeline, which is a projection of when the deliverables will be completed. And I believe there's a link there to help you with that.
So now we've reached the submission requirements. So before submitting an application, all applicants must register with the System Award Management or SAM and you must renew and validate your registration every 12 months. That's like the very first thing. There are several registrations that—I believe there's also one with Grants.gov. So really important to get started early. I can't stress that enough. Very, very important to do that. So you see here there's step one with your registration, which can take some time. And then step two is actually beginning to submit the actual documents in the system. So next up.
So the biggest takeaway from this slide right here is that you can see there are really two distinct deadlines, and that's why I've got them in red. So your SF-424 and your SF-LLL must first be submitted in Grants.gov in order to even submit in JustGrants. It's similar to sort of letting us know that a complete application will be submitted in JustGrants. It's the form that you submit ahead of time. And if these forms do not go into Grants.gov, the larger application packet cannot go into JustGrants. So if you think about it, really, your first deadline is really critical, and that's the April 25th deadline. So just wanted to advise that the documents that are submitted in Grants.gov are an indication that a large, full complete application is coming forth in JustGrants. And then you do have to submit the entire application in JustGrants. So here just suggesting, once again, I say this every year because it's so important to start early. I would say even on both of these deadlines, you know, look at 48 to 72 hours ahead of what you see on the screen here, just because there's always some type of technical issue, and waiting until the last minute really doesn't allow you the time to go ahead and get some technical assistance and call the numbers that we're going to provide you in this webinar to get some technical assistance. So please, please start early. Okay. Next slide.
Applying for DOJ Funding. This can be challenging only if you don't have the information that you need, right? And maybe it's the first time you've applied, and if that's the case, there's so many steps and it can be very confusing. So take advantage of the JustGrants' application webinars. It's a great way to just take away some of those unknowns, reduce the stress of, increase your chances for a successful submission and increase your agency's confidence in being able to submit an application, at least for consideration and get that far. And then in years to come, hopefully, you'll get a grant award, but at least, you get that far and you can continue to improve the actual content of the submission. But, at least, be able to submit it. And there are so many steps, but there's lots of help along the way. So just urging you to take advantage of that. The funding should be accessible to everyone. And we do provide a lot of technical assistance along the way. Okay. Next step—next slide rather.
So here are the contact and the resources internal to OJP should you need them. There's Grants.gov, and JustGrants, and then Technical Assistance with Programmatic Requirements that you need to get to the OJP Response Center. Even though you can contact BJA, we urge you to use these technical assistance providers that we contract with to provide you with the technical assistance you need, because they are really the people that are on the inner workings of these systems. They know how these systems work. And sometimes there have been similar issues that someone else had that they've already resolved and they can do it quickly and efficiently. Next slide.
So, once again, I would leave you with this deadline here of April 25th in Grants.gov making sure that you understand, once again, that the first step is the Grants.gov deadline. The second step is JustGrants. But you've got to make that April 25th deadline in order to submit your full application in JustGrants. And then right below that, again, is the support center and the service desk and all the help numbers should you need it. I urge you again to start early, so hopefully you can resolve any unforeseen application issues. So that concludes the technical part of the presentation, but now we are open to questions and answers.
DARYL FOX: Wonderful. Thank you so much, Maria, and to all the presenters today. I just want to make a reminder to everybody on today’s webinar, the PowerPoint transcript and captioned recording will be posted to the BJA website. So once those are—you'll receive an email and it'll alert you to where you can access those materials or reference. If you do have a question, far bottom right of your screen, three dots, enter in the QA box and our panelists will cue those up. We have quite a bit of time left today. And just first one, "Generally, are Department of Corrections, are they eligible for these opportunities?"
MARIA FRYER: Yes. Most definitely. That would be under Category 2.
DARYL FOX: Similar to eligibility, "Are 911 communication centers that are standalone public safety entities with crisis response programs eligible or this for law enforcement corrections?"
MARIA FRYER: I would say yes. Daryl, can you go back to the eligibility slide? That might help. So city, town, county, tribal, state governments, and the other applies to universities. Okay. Great. Thank you.
DARYL FOX: "Are these for creating programs specifically for a particular entity?"
MARIA FRYER: So this program is to not only create a new program but also can enhance an existing program. Specifically, if you have a crisis response and intervention training program, you may want to build out more community engagement. And there's some way that you think you can enhance your program. Maybe you can enhance it with a culturally specific type of aspect to your training or personnel who offers the training or people who do respond on these teams. So it can be creating from, scratch, building it, planning, designing and then it can also be enhancing as well.
DARYL FOX: "Our police department already has a crisis response team but an antiquated police database that is unable to get data. Can this grant be used to purchase new police database?"
MARIA FRYER: Yes. Equipment is allowable. And maybe—I believe it's in the objectives, under Category 1. Maybe if we go back to that slide, you can see—I'm almost certain it called out data, dashboards, and things like that, so that's the world that we're in is to be able to communicate and communicate effectively with officers out in the field or our community behavioral health partners and to be effective. So I believe it's there. I think maybe one slide back. There you go. Third bullet down. So it's really important also to be able to track calls for service and to understand the prevalence of behavioral health calls in the community, perhaps where they're coming from, so that you can help inform your practices and your policies as well. Thank you, Daryl.
DARYL FOX: That seems to be the end of the questions in the queue at this time. If you do have a question, please go ahead and enter that in. In the meantime, I'll put this slide up as well. Once we conclude, if you do have any questions in any aspect, whether it be Grants.gov, JustGrants, or the Response Center that are going to be responsible for any programmatic dissertation questions you may have, you can contact them directly at these email addresses and telephone numbers. There's a question about the application site. I'll go ahead and put the link in to this actual solicitation on the BJA website where you can access the solicitation and it'll direct you to all the required systems, including JustGrants and Grants.gov. This was already addressed back in the third question to the panel. "Is this for sole agency only or is there a way to just expand on programs?"
MARIA FRYER: Sure. So I think we covered it in an earlier slide. And I think it gets at the, the applicant agency versus an applicant agency and their subrecipients or other contracts. And so these programs typically work in partnership between justice and community partners, behavioral health, other types of service providers and because you're not only designing a program within your department but you're also bringing in the community to provide the services, because when you respond to people in crisis and with mental health and co-occurring substance use disorders, you need to be able to have those partners at the ready to refer people and to provide services and to provide warm handoff so people have access to treatment. And so the applicant agency would be the, of course, the agency that applies and has the fiscal and the management responsibility and designs the program, but they also have in that program, partnerships. And that can be through subrecipients, it could be through contracts, or other types of MOU agreements. It doesn't have to be tied to financing but it can be an MOU agreement. But this is really where you build out a strong program because why these programs have been so successful, going back to lessons learned from the Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program, they're successful because of their strong partnerships and collaboration. And that's how you enhance response and services for people with behavioral health needs and hopefully prevent them from going deeper into the criminal justice system or coming back or getting those repeat calls for service. If you are thinking about doing follow-up or having a follow-up team, that usually works very well in many communities to follow up with calls for service to help prevent people from coming back in contact with law enforcement. So there's lots of things you can do as an applicant agency to partner in the community, but we do have to have one application from one eligible entity. I hope that expands a little more.
DARYL FOX: "Can you expand a little bit on the culturally specific organization and perhaps some examples of how that delves into corrections?"
MARIA FRYER: If you could go back, Darryl, to the priority slide, priority considerations. And that's where we would go back to page 12 of the solicitation. So culturally specific, there is a definition for it in the solicitation itself. Culturally specific organizations are defined, for the purposes of this solicitation, as private, nonprofit, or tribal organizations whose primary purpose as a whole is to provide culturally specific services to racial and ethnic groups, including, among others, Black people, Hispanic and Latino people, Native American and other indigenous peoples of North America, including Alaska Native, Eskimo, Asian-Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. I would also add to that group—I would add gender specific as a culturally specific group and BJA has a whole body of work on gender specific responses, especially in jails, because women's pathways to the criminal justice system are different than men's pathways to the criminal justice system. So that might be something that you're looking at as well. And I think if I were reviewing this solicitation today, I would add that. So I'm kind of coming in at the 11th hour on this one, but certainly I would add gender specific as well.
DARYL FOX: "Do applicants need to reference the BJA CRIT Curriculum to use as a guide when developing a program?"
MARIA FRYER: Can you repeat that, Daryl?
DARYL FOX: "Do applicants need to reference the BJA Curriculum, CRIT, the acronym to use as a guide when developing a..."
MARIA FOX: So—sure. So we strongly encourage communities to use it as a guide or actually deploy the curriculum. It has been several years in the works through an academic institution. It's based on—enhanced from previous iterations of what we know is CIT. It's the first time that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities are incorporated into such a curriculum. It's current. It's turnkey. It has a trainers' guide, a participant guide. It has a slide deck and has evaluations. And through the academic initiative, which is—it began at the University of Cincinnati, in partnership with ICP and the ARC and several other NCIP international—several partners can take credit for contributing to the overall curriculum. But it is a best practice guide and it's been piloted in several sites. And I think, as a foundation, you don't have to use it—I guess to kind of cut to the chase, you don't have to use it, strongly encouraged, because it gives you—it gives you what is needed for a best practice program. Even if an agency decides they want a multilayered approach where they're going to use the CRIT Curriculum as sort of a foundational undergirding to maybe to a mobile crisis after that or a co-responder. Many agencies do multilayer on top of the CRIT Curriculum as well. So there's lots you can do with it. A Train-the-Trainer is coming forward and also compendium documents to help support correctional communities and so it's strongly encouraged because a lot has gone into it. It's the most current in the field. And it's a best practice training curriculum.
DARYL FOX: And Rachel was able to provide that link, which I have put to the chat to everybody, so you can download the toolkit from the link there.
MARIA FRYER: Oh, great. Thanks, Rachel. And I forgot to mention, I want to just make sure I emphasize this. It is free to the public. It is absolutely 100% free. Everything that BJA produces is available to you online. You can download it and you can use it at no cost or low cost. And the reason for that is because this training should be accessible to every department and any agency that can collect the people up on the ground to implement and do the training, find the expertise in the community to do certain modules of the training. And as you do that and you go through the process of sort of curating all that subject expertise in your own community, you're building relationships along the way. And that's hugely important to a successful response, is having the relationships with the people in the community and also the people that you serve in the community or even in a carceral setting and even in a correctional facility as well. So going through the process of sort of taking the curriculum and building a stakeholder group and adding people with certain subject expertise to your group and then beginning to think about where to hold the training and who's going to participate, all of that builds to a really strong program. And BJA believes that it's attainable for every community and it shouldn't have to break the bank, because this is already built and put forward with taxpayer dollars. So I just want to make sure I emphasize that to everyone on this call.
DARYL FOX: Thanks so much. Maria, is there anything in closing before we conclude today's webinar?
MARIA FRYER: Just thank you so much for your time and your attention today. And I just want to wish you the best of luck. And I look forward to seeing applications from all across the country and in different locations, small, medium, and large departments. And if you need assistance or you find any particular aspect of the application process particularly difficult, please reach out to the numbers in the webinar so that we can provide you the assistance that you need. Thank you so much.
DARYL FOX: So on behalf of the Bureau of Justice Assistance, IACP, and our panelists, thank you for joining today's webinar. This will end today's presentation.