FY 2023 STOP School Violence Training and Technical Assistance Program

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DARYL FOX: Good afternoon everyone and welcome to today's webinar, “FY 2023 STOP School Violence 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 welcoming remarks and to begin the presentation. David?
DAVID ADAMS: Thanks, Daryl. Good afternoon and thank you for joining today's funding webinar for the STOP School Violence Training and Technical Assistance Program. We'll go over an overview of OJP and BJA so that you become familiar with us. An overview of the program, we'll talk about eligibility, some things to keep in mind as you prepare your application. Some FAQs. And then we'll have some resources that will assist you in your application process and then we'll take questions.
Before I begin, I want to remind you that this is for the training and technical assistance program. It was originally funded in 2019. OJP and BJA are required to re-compete these awards periodically and this is a required re-competition of the training and technical assistance for the STOP program. If you are looking to apply for a local STOP grant, that webinar will be held next week and you will find a link to that in the chat. This is only for the training and technical assistance contract cooperative agreement and is not for local awards. So I just wanted to clear that up at the beginning before we get going. Daryl, you can hit the next slide.
So a little bit about OJP. The Office of Justice Programs provides grant funding, training, research, and statistics to the criminal justice community. It's one of three grant-making components at the Department of Justice which is also the home of the Office on Violence Against Women and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services or COPS office. OJP is made up of several bureaus beginning with BJA, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, OVC or the Office for Victims of Crime, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention or OJJDP, and the SMART Office, which is the Office for Sex Offenders, Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering, and Tracking. 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. Next.
BJA's Director is Karhlton F. Moore. He was appointed in February of 2022 and leads our 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. The BJA office is made up of several sections. The Policy Office of which I am a member. The Programs Office which is our grant management section. Our Operations Office which coordinates our communications and budgets and performance measures. And finally, the Public Safety Officer Benefits Office which supports families of public safety, personnel killed in the line of duty. Next.
There's five major strategic focus areas of BJA. Improve public safety through measures which build trust with the community. Reduction in recidivism and prevention of unnecessary confinement and interactions with the criminal justice system. Integration of evidence-based research-driven strategies in the day-to-day operations of BJA and programs BJA administers and supports. Increasing program effectiveness with a renewed emphasis on data analysis, information sharing, and performance management. And ensuring organizational excellence through outstanding administration and oversight of all of BJA's strategic investments. Next.
Our funding is to invest diverse funding streams to accomplish these goals. We educate through research, develop, and deliver what works. We equip agencies with the tools and products to build capacity and improve outcomes. And we partner with a number of organizations through consulting, connection, and convening national and regional conferences and meetings. Next.
Now, a little bit about the STOP TTA Program. The Students, Teachers, and Officers, or STOP Program, is designed to improve K through 12 school security by providing students and teachers with the tools they need to recognize, respond quickly to, and help prevent acts of violence and ensure a positive school climate. The program was created after funding that authorized the program in 2018. This solicitation specifically seeks an applicant to serve as a training and technical assistance national provider on BJA's behalf to provide TTA and other support to BJA and COPS school violence prevention program grantees with an estimated 200 grantees annually served for one-on-one technical assistance and 150 direct requests for assistance for the TTA helpdesk. And to provide tools, resources, information to the field generally, and also you should clearly articulate how you'll continue and expand the TTA efforts that are currently being completed based on the requirements set forth under the STOP School Violence Act in BJA and COPS Office guidance. Next.
The eligibility includes for profit organizations other than small businesses, nonprofits that have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS as well as nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3)
status with the IRS. Private institutions of higher education, public and state-controlled institutions of a higher education. Next.
The objectives of this 36-month program period is to provide assistance to both BJA and COPS grantees but mainly the focus is on BJA grantees. The recipients require to achieve the objectives and produce deliverables that include the list below but are not limited to this list. And those things include increasing the knowledge and skills of STOP and SVPP grantees with cutting-edge innovative resources, training and technical assistance both remote and on site. To increase the guidance and resources available to schools, school safety practitioners in a criminal justice community. Identify and address current and emerging school safety threats and concerns to education professional, students, parents, and law enforcement. To serve as a resource for information and research about national and statewide school safety initiatives. Select and disseminate informational school safety initiatives and school safety data. To raise awareness of BJA's STOP program and trainings and resources. And to track and disseminate activities and successes of grantees. Next.
Specific deliverables listed [in the] solicitation include identifying crime scene practices and projects, deliverables for all aspects of the STOP and SVPP programs, to develop toolkits when necessary, model policies, practices, templates, curriculum, and other grantee-related deliverables to ensure consistency across the STOP program and to provide actionable resources for the field and maintain an online clearinghouse of these resources and coordinate with BJA as well as schoolsafety.gov in the dissemination of these products. You'll provide training and educational materials in all areas of the STOP and SVPP programs based on the types of violence programs they are addressing including but not limited to the areas of behavioral threat assessment, development of crisis intervention teams, mental health educational resources, school climate improvement resources, violence prevention and violence reduction, law enforcement coordination and training, and implementation of deterrent measures and notification technology. And all products that are produced by the awardee must be 508-compliant. You'll assist grantees with site and risk assessment and determine the most effective and efficient uses of target hardening, deterrent measures and technology, including those related to expedited law enforcement notification. Next.
You'll assist grantees and develop project planning in their project planning periods to develop benchmarks such as logic models, partnership formation, evaluation plan, and sustainability plan to ensure successful implementation of their grants. In this year's STOP solicitation for local agencies, we did include a time period that they should include at the beginning of their project for project planning. You'll assist STOP and SVPP grantees in developing and implementing technological and school cultural solutions, such as anonymous reporting systems, to include a plan for acquiring and implementing the technology based on best practices, monitoring the implementation and use to make sure there's no disproportionate impact on the privacy and information sharing that's involved with law enforcement, and developing marketing and educational programs for students to encourage its use. You'll assist the grantees in working with applicable project research partners to gather required data related to threat assessment and anonymous reporting systems to track data pertaining to the use of the behavioral threat assessment, such as demographic characteristics of those who undergo assessments and the referral result of those assessments to document services provided to each assessment and review data evaluation to make sure there's no disparate impact based on race, ethnicity, or disability. And you'll generate an annual report for BJA based on this information. Again, last year, we required local STOP grantees that were implementing behavioral threat assessments or anonymous reporting systems to include a research partner to ensure that these tools are being used in a fair manner and are not disproportionately impacting students based on race or other demographics.
You'll also make sure that STOP SVPP grantees are trained in the implementation of any toolkits or other resources developed by the provider and know how to carry out the activities or fidelity to that resource. Next.
You'll coordinate with Training and Technical Assistance delivery for grantees that are providing training for school officials responding to mental health issues, which could include CIT training and a multi-disciplinary team development and development activities pertaining to CIT Training and Technical Assistance. Those should be coordinated with the existing BJA CIT efforts to ensure consistency of content across all of BJA's programs. You'll coordinate your delivery with local law enforcement agencies that may be participating in individual projects to ensure the effective coordination between the agencies involved in those projects. You'll document the work done under the STOP SVPP programs, highlight successful strategies and programs, and develop that annual report which I mentioned earlier to the BJA Director for approval. You'll also be asked to catalog evidence-based resources by topic based on experience level, such as Behavioral Threat Assessment 101, which is the basics, or Behavioral Threat Assessment 102, which is a little bit more advanced. So let's say you'll have resources that are gathered for those who are just starting implementation of behavioral threat assessment or those who are already implementing and next steps they should be taking as examples of this. Develop and provide a progression of training materials based on the level of need. You'll plan, support, and manage national or regional meetings of awardees, numerous peer-to-peer site visits of up to 50 people per visit, focus groups, and site meetings as directed by BJA, including a bi-annual STOP grantee national conference and national in-person meeting for state STOP grantees and a bi-yearly meeting of STOP TTA providers.
So let me just stop here. BJA has already received some questions related to a national conference for national awardees as well as the in-state, one being bi-annual and the other being annual. And so our intent is not to make this too onerous on whoever the provider ends up to be selected. We have a very arduous conference reporting system at OJP. So you could, if you so choose to do it in this manner, you could have that annual conference when it coincides with the bi-annual national grantees, you could do a section that's for just the state STOP grantees, at the same time, simultaneously with that national conference that is for all other grantees which are your local agencies. That way you're not having to do two separate conferences if you so choose but you have a focus, maybe choose a half day or maybe you choose a day of that overall conference where it's just for the state grantees so that you're working with those folks that are doing something on a state scale versus someone grantees that are working at a local level or a school district level. Next slide.
Develop in-person training for school district personnel, parents, community-based partners, and students on every state school safety planning and program implementation. This would be multi-disciplinary in its development, delivery, and audience and include plans to deliver training in a minimum of eight times a year. You'll categorize grantees by their project purpose and provide specific assistance based on the type of project they're implementing. You'll build communities of practice among grantees in the field based on these areas of effort, identifying up to 15 model programs and sites to create STOP learning sites, identifying strengths of each of those model learning sites and the learning principles associated with the program they're implementing. And you'll develop learning site network among the identified sites, work with the sites, develop site visits, protocols and practices, and host peer-to-peer training visits to these sites by jurisdictions financially supported by the selected TTA provider. You'll describe a plan to assist individuals STOP and SVPP grantee organizations in the dissemination and disseminate updates about their goals, practices, and project process. And these plans should address how a TTA provider will facilitate consistent sharing of project information with key agency components throughout the life of the individual projects, with the objective of increasing the understanding and value of evidence-based practices. You'll regularly check in with STOP and SVPP grantees to increase the likelihood of success of their individual programs. And you'll assist the BJA and COPS Office in collecting, reviewing, and analyzing related grantee data and performance measures. Next.
Provide technical assistance as requested by the field and/or BJA and the COPS Office that may not come from STOP or SVPP grantees, including on-site behavioral threat assessment training. You'll describe a plan for identifying 10 STOP school safety learning sites. These sites will be used for peer-to-peer learning at these sites and maintain a community of practice at each site. It was pointed out that in one point on the previous slide, we mentioned 15, and on this one, it mentions 10. Apparently, something we didn't notice that there was some conflict there. So applicants should plan on 15 learning sites. You'll serve as a thought leader and information clearinghouse for relevant research and best practices. Maintain an online project management tool or dashboard that helps govern the management of the project deliverables and activities to which BJA will have access. You should outline in your proposal a strategic and comprehensive process to achieve the objectives and deliverables that we've described. Your proposal should also clearly state how the project will be sustained beyond the end of the funding period of any issue award. That's sustainability and standard across BJA because we never know from one year to the next how funding will be made available. However, I can say that the STOP School Violence Program has been authorized for up to 10 years, which would be 2028. And we have received funding appropriations in every year. And with the Bipartisan Safe Communities Act, we know that we will receive funding for another six years because it was included in that act. Next slide.
Some things to keep in mind in your application. You'll want to include a training delivery chart with your application. You'll need to include a list of subject matter experts and key personnel resumes with the application. Include a program timeline for major milestones and deliverables with application. Applicant disclosure of proposed subrecipients need to be included, as well as a training delivery chart which is mentioned twice on here. And proposal of any additional deliverables you plan to include beyond those that we've listed in the solicitation. Next slide.
You'll closely work with BJA. This is a cooperative agreement which means BJA directs a lot of the work that's being done. We'll have regularly-scheduled voice or video calls at least monthly. We have a monthly check-in with TTA providers across BJA programs. 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 BJA's National Training and Technical Assistance Center or NTTAC. And all providers must develop an online project management tool, or dashboard as we refer to it at BJA, that helps govern the management of the project and to which BJA also has access. Next.
You'll need to provide a clear and concise statement that provides a thorough understanding of why the development enhancement and implementation of a program and describe the anticipated impact on the community, in this case grantees, but also the field in general because a lot of the resources that you'll be creating, such as toolkits, or one-pagers, or webinars that you may create and have available on demand is also available to the field through the website. You'll describe successful methods of TTA delivery and the importance of expert strategies to engage the field more broadly. Your application should also discuss the impact of best practices approaches in planning and implementation on the program's outcomes and the role that the TTA will have, and to improve field-wide outcomes in the area of school safety. Next.
So some frequently asked questions or relate to: “Are competitive programs on the solicitation meant for entities to apply to receive training and or technical assistance?” No. Under this solicitation, you're proposing to develop and deliver training or technical assistance to the field.
“What things should be included in your application?” You should review the Application and Submission Information section in the solicitation that begins on, it says here page 12. I think that's correct, but under the heading of Application and Submission Information. You'll need to include your Abstract, your Narrative, your Budget Worksheet, the Budget Narrative, Training Delivery Chart, Timeline, and resumes. Specific items that need to be included for your application to go to peer review are the Abstract, the Narrative, and the Budget Worksheet/Budget Narrative. I realized that we're referring to budget worksheet, budget narrative, that's actually a web-based form now in JustGrants. So you need to make sure that your budget is there because the narrative is part of that online budget sheet in JustGrants. So that online submission includes your budget detail and then underneath that particular section that you're inputting your budget figures, there's a place to put the narrative for what those costs are. So make sure that all of that is included in the application as you're submitting it in JustGrants. Next.
“Can my organization propose to partner with other entities?” Absolutely. You would expect that in the case of training and technical assistance. It's allowable but only one entity may submit the application and assume fiscal and management responsibilities. And you need to identify those partner organizations in your application. Next slide.
Some resources that are available for grants applicants. Grants.gov provides technical assistance for submitting the SF-424 and the SF-LLL. You see the customer service hotline numbers there. They're also listed in the solicitation. There's also email. The website's listed there, as well as email address. And Grants.gov provides information on available federal funding opportunities for various federal agencies. Next slide.
JustGrants also has technical support. There's a customer service hotline. The hours are 5:00 AM to 9:00 PM Eastern Time. Saturday and Sunday and federal holidays, from 9:00 to 5:00. And you also see here the email address and the website for user support. But that's also, excuse me, it's also included in the solicitation. Next slide.
OJP also has a resource center. You'll see there the email. There's a web chat feature. There's a toll-free line. And you can subscribe to email notifications of new funding opportunities, as well as other resources. And that information is provided on the slide as well as in the solicitation. If at any time you have questions as you're putting together your application, email [email protected] and they may have the response immediately for you. If there's something they cannot answer, they will send the question to me and I'll respond and they will forward a response back to you. Next slide.
Remember, there are now dual deadlines since the implementation of JustGrants. The deadline to submit the SF-424 for this solicitation is 8:59 PM Eastern Time on May 1, 2023. You will then submit the full application with attachments at JustGrants and that deadline is May the 8th, one week later at 8:59 PM Eastern Time. Read the solicitation carefully for all guidance related to submitting applications. You are also strongly recommended to upload 72 hours before the scheduled deadline. That way, you have plenty of time if there's an error, if there's something that you're getting error message back and you can't submit, that gives you the time to contact customer service. They can contact BJA and we can get you a resolution to the problem so that you can submit on time. Next slide.
There's our OJP Funding Resource Center, Grants Financial Guide, the Grants Management Online Training, and the Grants Application Resource Guide are all included. And all of these, again, are in the solicitation. So if you have any questions related to what is allowable expenditures and what's not allowable, you can find all that in the financial guide in the Financial Management Online Training. And then the Grant Application Resource Guide will be helpful to assist with any questions you have in submitting your application. Next slide.
For email updates, you can text OJP with your email address to 468-311 to subscribe for email updates. We have our social media for BJA available that you can get updates on things that are going on at BJA, as well as our website. Next slide.
These are some additional resources for applicants' technical assistance with submitting the SF-424 and the SF-LLL, which is your first step in submitting your application. Technical assistance submitting the full application with JustGrants. And then technical assistance with programmatic requirements, you can contact the OJP Resource Center. Next slide.
And at this point, we'll take any questions that you may have in the Q&A box. And Daryl will let me know if you have any questions.
DARYL FOX: Great. Thanks so much, David. Just a reminder to everybody on today's webinar, the PowerPoint transcript and recording will be posted to the BJA website. You'll get an email when those items are available on where to access those with the address you registered with today. If you do have a question, there's plenty of time left today, enter it in the Q&A box, far bottom right of your screen, three dots and send to All Panelists who will better be able to work with these questions. David, there was an initial question about eligibility on profits. I can go back to that slide, if you just want to hash what was said there, actual eligibility. So for that person, here's the five distinct categories of eligible entities.
DAVID ADAMS: So, yes. So for-profit organizations are eligible to apply as long as they do not make a profit from the project. And that's standard across OJP, that's mentioned in the financial guide as well. Basically, you're having to provide services at your cost. You cannot make a profit. Nonprofits, there are two types of nonprofits. One are those having 501(c)(3) status with the IRS. That's typical, but there are nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status. And they are also eligible to apply under this solicitation.
DARYL FOX: Regarding the applications themselves, “Are appendices allowed to be submitted with everything else?”
DAVID ADAMS: Yes. So typically, you'll talk about, for instance, and this is just one for instance, you'll talking about the timeline in your narrative. But typically applicants will submit a separate document that is like a visual chart for a timeline, that is considered an appendices and that does not count against your 15-page limit. Resumes are considered appendices, that does not count against your 15-page limit. I'm trying to think of, oh, the document related to subawards or subrecipients, that's also separate and apart from your 15-page narrative. I don't believe there are any limits in JustGrants on the number of appendixes that you can include. I would say to please name your appendices by the type of document like it is. So let's say it's a timeline, I would say name that timeline. And if it's a PDF, then it would automatically have the PDF extension on it. If it's a resume, I would say it should be saved, I would name it something like the individual's name, resume, and then whatever type of document it is, that type of thing. But yes, appendices are allowed and do not count against the 15-page narrative when it is things like your timeline, resumes, and so forth.
DARYL FOX: Then regarding the conference for the grantees every two years, there's one for the grantees every two years, and one for state level grantees each year, is that correct?
DAVID ADAMS: Yes. And so if you're familiar with the site-based solicitations, there's two categories. One for state applicants and that includes state agencies like your Department of Education, your state Homeland Security, state colleges and universities. And then there's Category 2 which is everybody else, your nonprofits, your local school division, your law enforcement agencies, anything that's a local agency, that fits into Category 2. So the national conference would be for all applicants or all types of grantees, state and local. We're also asking for a separate conference or a separate event that is just for your state applicants or your state awardees. And this can be done in one of two ways. It's totally up to the applicant if they want to try to hold two conferences every other year, one for everybody and one for just states, they're more than welcome to include that. But if they think it makes more sense financially to, say, hold that one conference the year that the state coincides with the bi-annual conference, if they want to have a separate section for just state awards, so let's say, for instance, I know that the Virginia Center for School and Campus Safety hosts numerous conferences each year. One is a national threat assessment conference. And at that conference what they did, they had a half day at the beginning of the conference that was just for certain types of information. So, if an applicant wanted to so choose, they could have a separate section of their big conference for just the state awardee. So you can just cover information with those types of grantees, if that's what you so choose. And so let's say you're planning to have a three-day conference. Let's say you might do just one day just for the state grantees, and then the other two days is for everybody. So that's the way you could do that. If you think it makes more sense, if you think it is more cost-effective, that would be in line with what we're asking for.
DARYL FOX: “If an institute of higher education partners with local law enforcement entities and services provided in K through 12 schools, will those K through 12 schools have to participate as a grant applicant?”
DAVID ADAMS: Okay. So I'm not understanding, it sounds more like a question for the local site solicitation, which is a separate solicitation. And that webinar is being done next week. So I'm not quite sure what the questioner is asking.
DARYL FOX: Okay. And then for everybody on the call, I did put that again in the chat, a link to the registration for that site-based. And then, just generally too, David, regarding that, someone's seeking grants for additional school resource officers, would those apply field-based grant opportunities?
DAVID ADAMS: So there is a separate COPS funding opportunity that is for hiring law enforcement. It doesn't necessarily just have to be SROs. But if you're looking to higher SROs, that is a separate COPS funding opportunity, their hiring program. So local applicants that are looking to hire SROs would go and apply under the COPS funding, the COPS hiring solicitation. The STOP School Violence Program, the site solicitation, they cannot use funds to hire law enforcement or to hire SROs. They can pay overtime to existing SROs but again, that's the local solicitation, the STOP School Violence Local Program. In the case of the TTA program, when I mentioned law enforcement before, that you could be providing training and technical assistance that includes training for SROs. And that could be for folks that are including SROs in their behavioral threat assessment teams. If they're being used to implement a program like the GREAT program, which is an acronym for Gang Resistance Education and Training, a program that BJA used to fund, but now OJJDP has that program. But it is a program that's in the schools that builds positive relationships between students and law enforcement, while at the same time hoping to discourage their participation in gangs. So TTA providers would be providing some service, for instance, the current provider, one of the deliverables they had was a series of six roll call type of videos for SROs. So you would be providing some assistance to law enforcement, especially to grantees that have a partnership with law enforcement.
DARYL FOX: Is there a general description within the program on what higher education entails?
DAVID ADAMS: So higher education is not covered by the STOP program itself. So in other words, for that solicitation that we're holding the funding webinar for next week, we make it clear that all of those funds have to be used in K through 12 environments. However, higher education, colleges and universities, whether they're private or rather they're state-supported, are eligible to apply to provide services under that local program, as well as being eligible to provide services as a TTA provider under this program. And that can be a private institution. An example of a private college or university is the University of Richmond. I'm trying to say, Georgetown University is a private university. Whereas state-supported institutions are institutions like the University of Virginia, University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan. I believe Michigan State is a state-supported institution, those types of things.
DARYL FOX: Getting back to the conference question, it's just a follow-up on that. “In addition to the grantee conferences, is it correct that there's expectation for a meeting of all STOP TTA providers two times per year?”
DAVID ADAMS: Yes. I did kind of skip over that. So currently we have three TTA providers. We have the overarching TTA provider which provides an array of services to our STOP grantees and SVPP grantees. Last year we did a solicitation for specialized training and technical assistance. One of those was to provide training for School Resource Officers who are obviously School Resource Officers are involved in schools,
but also law enforcement in general that come into contact are involved with school-age populations. And Probation Officers that may be involved with school-age populations. And then the other category dealt with providing training and technical assistance related to community violence. There's another program at BJA that is a community violence interrupter program. And the idea was to see how that could be taken into a school environment. And so currently we have training and technical assistance provider, in this case, it's the Institute for Intergovernmental Research that's doing the law enforcement. And then there is LISC, and I can't remember off the top of my head what the acronym stands for, but they have the community violence piece of that. So there's three providers, the main overarching provider and this provider would be responsible for pulling together and it wouldn't be a large conference obviously because it's only three providers. So you could do that virtual, you could do that in person. And it can be like a two-day work session, a focus group type of thing. It's up to the provider how they think they can vet on the applicants, how they can best respond to that particular deliverable.
DARYL FOX: And then the grant, “Is it the site-based for the K12, specifically looking to implement additional safety features such as locks, lights, cameras, et cetera?
DAVID ADAMS: Yeah. So there's—and we'll get into that more next week. But COPS have a particular type of deliverable that they're funding stream funds, which is more of the—I have—I still refer to it as deterrent measures, but the word of the day is deterrent measures. I refer to it typically as, target hardening. So that would be cameras, gates, locks, ballistic glass, COPS fund that stuff. BJA funds training which could improve school climate and that's a number of different things from Positive Behavioral—PBIS is the acronym that's used for that, Social Emotional Learning or SEL. As well as we fund training and formation of school-based behavioral threat assessment teams and other technology solutions, such as but not limited to, anomalous reporting systems. But the security cameras, that doesn't fall under the technology that BJA funds. That falls under the COPS funding. But you have digital threat assessment which is a technology and that would be funded through BJA's appropriation.
DARYL FOX: And just getting back to eligibility, “Is there a way to expand on the for-profit eligibility requirement?
DAVID ADAMS: I have to tell you, I'm not an IRS individual so I know that you have nonprofits that are designated. You have to apply to the IRS to get that designation. There are nonprofits that don't have it. I actually did not realize what the—and I still can't explain the difference, but I did not know what the difference was until somebody pointed out to me that we did not include that in the solicitation originally and it has been included in the past. We made the appropriate change so that it applies to both types. But I honestly don't know the difference. I'd asked you to—the organization who's doing the application should know whether they have one or the other, and they'll just designate that when they have to check the box in JustGrants as to what type of applicant they are.
DARYL FOX: And was there a mention of a resource to assist with the budget and the financial aspects of this?
DAVID ADAMS: So, there was a link for the OJP financial guide, as well as the financial management online training. I don't know if the online training is open to anyone or just your grantee to have actual access to that. You can check that by clicking the link. And so, the budget is now—used to be, people would upload in Grants.gov—when the application process was Grants.gov, you would upload a typically an Excel spreadsheet that gave you the budget detail, and then you would have possibly a Word document, although you could do it in the Excel Spreadsheet the narrative part, which explains what each specific category of funding would be used for. The online form is now in JustGrants. You put in the detail based on the category of expenditure it is, rather it's travel, rather it's a subaward or rather it's benefits, I can't remember the term, but whatever your employee benefits or your employee salary, anyway, you enter that in the detail part. And then below, there's a place where you type in text that you give the narrative for what each one of those line items are for. So that's the way that's done. I've never applied for a grant, so I can't tell you what's in JustGrants other than what I see when I'm reviewing applications. And that's what I see. I see the detail part, and then I see the narrative that's in that section below where they type that in.
DARYL FOX: Thanks so much. That's the end of the questions in the queue at this time. We still have a few more moments today. If you have a question, enter that in. On the slide now you'll see, when we do adjourn, if you do have additional questions, contact either one of these entities for other specifics on Grants.gov, JustGrants, or anything programmatic-related if the solicitation itself, the OJP Response Center, [email protected]. Then you did mention this, David, but just really briefly again, due to Grants.gov, it's mandatory to apply to both Grants.gov and JustGrants, correct?
DAVID ADAMS: Yes. So you're only uploading two forms into Grants.gov. That's the form for federal assistance, which I think is what SF-424 is. The SF-LLL, I believe, is a lobbying form where you, fill out that. Once those two forms are in, then you are given the access to JustGrants to upload everything else. And related to that, in the beginning of the solicitation, it tells you what you have to do on the front and you have to, if you've never applied for grants through to BJA or OJP, there is a process you have to apply for specific information before you're even able to get into Grants.gov or JustGrants to apply. You need to do that now because you can't wait until it's time to upload the application to have those specific identifiers that allow you to apply.
And then just related it to that, let me just say, we're looking for applicants that have experience in delivering training and technical assistance on a national level. This program is not for individuals or organizations that have never done training and technical assistance on a national level. This program has over 500 grantees. And then when you combine the COPS awards, it's over 800 grantees. You need to be an organization that has the capability of delivering training and technical assistance on a national level. And to be quite honest, that's basically a small subset of organizations that have that ability. And I urge you not to spend a lot of time because it takes a lot of time to pull together these applications, if you don't have the qualifications or the capacity that allow you to apply, to deliver training and technical assistance, and produce all different deliverables and types of publications we're expecting on a national level, if you've never done that before, this solicitation is not for you. And with that, Daryl, I'll let you wrap things up.
DARYL FOX: Okay. Great. So like I said, if you have an additional question once we adjourn, here is the information. And this PowerPoint recording and transcript will be posted to the BJA website. So look out for that within about seven to ten days. 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.