FY 2023 Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) Grant Program: Grantee Orientation

Transcript also available as PDF.

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, “FY 2023 Residential Substance Abuse Treatment (RSAT) Grant Program: Grantee Orientation,” hosted by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. At this time, it's my pleasure to introduce Aja Pappas, Program Divisions Chief with the Bureau of Justice Assistance, to begin the presentation. Aja?

AJA PAPPAS: Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you, everyone, for attending. My name is Aja Pappas and I'm a Division Chief with BJA. My team oversees a diverse portfolio of federal funding supporting programs at the intersection of justice and mental health. The Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program is one of those portfolios.

I want to start by thanking you all for attending this webinar. If you have not already, you will notice some new—and new-ish—faces and names associated with the RSAT Program. We want to thank you for your grace and patience while we work to create valuable resources and a fresh set of eyes to the program. Next slide.

This is the agenda for this afternoon. These are the topics that we will cover. After I complete this intro and welcome the OJP and BJA, I will briefly cover the program and the BJA Grant Manager roles, then we will get started with an RSAT overview from the Policy Office. We will share resources throughout the presentation in the slides, but at the end we will have some more to share.

As Daryl mentioned, please put your questions in the Q&A box. At the end of the presentation, we will have a robust Q&A session where we will do our best to address all questions presented. The slides and recording will be posted on our website later. Next slide.

In addition to myself, you will hear from Policy Advisor Meg Chapman and Grant Manager Renee Howell. We will also have a representative from the Performance Management Team to present on performance measures and resources. And lastly, you will have the opportunity to hear from your training and technical advisor, Advocates for Human Potential. Next slide.

The Bureau of Justice Assistance, BJA, was created in 1984 to reduce violent crime, create safer communities, and reform our nation's criminal justice system. BJA strengthens the nation's criminal justice system and helps America's state, local, and tribal jurisdictions reduce and prevent crime, reduce recidivism, and promote a fair and safe criminal justice system. BJA focuses its 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. BJA's Director is Karhlton Moore. Next slide.

What is the Office of Justice Programs? The Office of Justice Programs is one of three grant-making components of the Department of Justice, along with the Office of Violence Against Women, OVW, and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, also known as COPS. OJP provides grant funding, training, research, and statistics to the criminal justice community nationwide. The Bureau of Justice Assistance is one of the six program offices under OJP, and you can see they were all listed on this slide. Next slide.

BJA supports the field in many ways. We support the field through funding, education, equipment, and partnerships. BJA has diverse funding streams to support innovative projects. These projects include research into delivery of programs, tools to support those programs, and partnerships with agencies to provide technical assistance to programs. Next slide, please.
So we're already to our first poll. Daryl's going to go ahead and launch a poll, and we really want to see how long some of you guys have been an RSAT grantee. So once the poll launches, please go ahead and take a few moments to answer in Webex. And your options are going to be: since 2005; for the last 10 to 15 years; maybe an RSAT grantee under 10 years; or this is your first RSAT Award. Just give it a couple more seconds for responses before we close it. All right, Daryl. Can you go ahead and close that poll for me and launch the results for me? Okay.

So, about half of you all answered and we have a good mix here. We have some that have been an RSAT grantee since 2005, we have some 10 to 15 years, and we also have a few that it is their first RSAT Award. Well, thank you, everyone. And while we move on to policy, if I could ask that you all introduce yourselves in the chat and, go ahead in the chat also let us know what state or locality you are representing, please. Thank you. At this time, I'm going to go ahead and pass it off to Meg Chapman with policy.

MARGARET CHAPMAN: Thank you, Aja. And hi, everyone, thanks for joining us. So as mentioned, my name is Meg Chapman, and I joined BJA's Policy Office two years ago. I sit within the Corrections Reentry and Justice Reform Policy group at BJA, and most of the work I do is at the intersection of corrections and behavioral health. So one thing you may not know about BJA is that we have staff between policy, that's me, and programs, you just heard from Aja, and later you'll hear from Renee, both of who are in BJA's Programs Office. But our roles differ a little when it comes to formula grant programs, which RSAT is a formula grant program, versus competitive grant programs. The difference is that formula grant programs provide funding to states to pass on to subawardees—the state's are the grantees in these cases—as opposed to competitive grant programs, which provide funds directly to state, local, tribal governments, and even non-profit agencies to implement specific programs.

So, your engagement with the two BJA Offices tends to be a bit different depending on the type of program, which is why you may spend more or less time with different staff at BJA, depending on the program you administer. What does not change is the fact that BJA staff are here to help you successfully administer and implement your grant. You may also not know that most of BJA's grant programs are supported not just by BJA staff but also a training and technical assistance provider that has the relevant expertise to support grantees in their programmatic efforts. In this case, as Aja mentioned, RSAT is supported by Advocates for Human Potential, or AHP. They are the training and technical assistance provider. Many of you may have had some exposure to their services, but Andy Klein from AHP will be getting into a little bit of those specifics later in the presentation.

So, now that you have a bit of the lay of the land in terms of who does what, I'm going to return back to focusing on RSAT. So this slide provides an overview of the RSAT Program. It also identifies the authorizing legislation that supports the RSAT Program. In case you are wondering where all the specific program requirements come from, that's that legislation. As reflected in the slide, the RSAT Program is focused on supporting states in their efforts to increase access to treatment for individuals with substance use disorder or co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders who are moving through the nation's prisons, juvenile detention centers, and jails, and to continue that care upon release through aftercare programming. Each year, BJA releases a solicitation for state governments to apply, and since many of you have experience with RSAT as grantees, you're probably very familiar with this. Each year, a solicitation comes out, and allocations to the state are based on a formula. So, that provides each state and territory with the base amount, plus an allocation and proportion to the ratio that its present population bears to the total prison population of all states and territories. So congratulations to those of you who applied and received FY23 RSAT funding, and that total amount and the total number of awards is on the slide.

For those of you interested, there is a posting of archives, annual state allocations, available on BJA's site. So if you go to the RSAT Program on BJA's site, you can see those allocations. Again, for those of you who are newer to the program, that might be helpful to get a sense of what state allocations have been in the past in your state. Next slide, please.

As we have already discussed, the goal of the RSAT Program is to improve capacity of confinement facilities, which again, includes prisons, juvenile detention centers, and jails to provide evidence-based treatment to people pre-release and to continue that care post-release. So this starts with the ability to screen everyone who's entering a correction setting for substance use and risk of substance withdrawal, assess all those that screened positive for substance use to diagnose substance use disorders, and any co-occurring mental health disorder, and for criminogenic risk and needs. And then, providing case management services to support evidence-based SUD treatment and recovery programming pre-release, and then continuing the provision of case management and treatment services post-release as part of that aftercare, as well as providing other recovery support services post-release.

So, that is, from intake to back into the community, the kinds of things that we like to see supported through the RSAT Program, and is consistent with the statute associated with the program. We also see RSAT as an opportunity to support two priorities for the Department of Justice. First is to increase access to treatment for all individuals with substance use disorders, which includes promoting racial equity and removing barriers to access to treatment, including those who are in a confinement facility. Second is to increase access to Medication-Assisted Treatment, or MAT, which is a combination of three different FDA-approved medication options for opioid use disorder, combined with counseling and behavioral therapies. Access to MAT programs is part of our strategy to reduce the increasing number of overdoses across the country. It also supports facilities and their efforts to be responsive to recent guidance that was issued by the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division on protection for people with opioid use disorder under the Americans with Disabilities Act, namely, which is to continue access to medications, add intake, as well as recent findings from cases involving the lack of access to start or continue medications among people in correction settings with an opioid use disorder, so we really see RSAT as one of those programs to help you all in your efforts to be responsive to those changes in the landscape. Next slide, please.

So, on the next few slides, I'm just going to get into specifics of the different types of programs that can be supported using RSAT funds, and again, that's driven by the statute. First are residential substance use disorder treatment programs in prisons and juvenile detention centers. So if you want to use RSAT funds to support these types of programs, there are some requirements, and that includes engaging individuals with substance use disorder or co-occurring disorders for a period of six to twelve months. It requires periodic/random drug testing of individuals while they are in the program and while they continue under any form of community supervision. It also requires establishing a therapeutic community, and what that means is where program participants are set apart from the general population. So that might be achieved by having a separate facility for people with substance use disorders or separate housing unit, or a separate pod. And that can be people who are participating in our RSAT Program and may be participating in a slightly different program, but also for people with substance use disorders, and that just is to allow folks to focus on the recovery, away from distractions in the general population to the extent possible. It also requires providing aftercare services for program participants.

I'm going to get into a little more specific on the aftercare programs in a bit, so for now, just know that the requirement is to provide access to aftercare services for individuals who are participating in the RSAT Program while they're in the prison or juvenile detention center. So for that, that means that RSAT funds may be used to cover behavioral health staff to run the program, or cost to train the staff; medications for program participants—I referenced MAT programs; peer support services for program participants; reentry planners to work with program participants; or aftercare services for those, again, program participants. So it just has to have a clear access to the program and support the elements of the program. Next slide, please.

You can also use RSAT funds to support residential substance use disorder treatment programs in jails, and the requirements for that is, again, to engage individuals with substance use disorders or co-occurring disorders but for a slightly less period of time, recognizing that people generally stay in jails for a shorter period of time than in prisons. So that is at least a three-month program. Also, continuing to require that periodic random drug testing, and that the interest in establishing a therapeutic community, or at least, and again, recognizing that jails are a little bit different from say, prisons, is to group participants within that general setting, if you can't set aside a housing unit or a pod for people who are participating in the program. And again, that is that importance of providing aftercare services.

So, very similar to the residential programming and prisons and juvenile detention facilities, except again, a shorter period of time and acknowledging that the interest in establishing a therapeutic community may be difficult to achieve in a jail setting. And again, those funds may be used to cover the staff, training staff, hiring staff, the medications, peer support, the program, the re-entry planning or aftercare services. So very similar to the residential programs in a prison or juvenile detention center setting. Next slide.

RSAT funds may also be used by jails to initiate or continue evidence-based substance use disorder treatment programs. For example, I mentioned MAT programs earlier for individuals for programming that they were on when they arrived in the facility or to initiate treatment prior to them leaving the jail setting. This is an acknowledgement that the majority of folks in many jails are on pre-trial status, and it is just as important to continue their treatment that they may be on in the community or get them started in treatment before they return to the community. So, as you'll see, there are no requirements related to a therapeutic community setting or a minimum length of programming because, again, this is really an aspect that is targeting your pre-trial population that may not be remaining in the facility for a very long period of time.

So, I want to just pause for a minute and note that there are two ways to apply RSAT funds in a jail setting. One is those residential programs, and another is in this initiating continuing treatment amongst the pre-trial population. And I flagged this because it's important because, per the statute, at least 10% of the total amount made available to a state for any fiscal year must be used to make grants to local, correctional, and detention facilities in the state, provided such facilities exist for the purposes of assisting jail-based SUD treatment programming. If it sounds like that was read from the statute, I'm reading it aloud. But that is a component that either that needs to be met, but that these two different types of programming can support that requirement. Next slide.

So, as I've mentioned, aftercare service is important to long-term recovery for program participants after they return to the community. Again, this is thinking about the folks involved in a residential program in the prison, juvenile detention center, or jail and/or people who are moving through the jail on a more short-term basis as part of their pretrial requirements and getting back into the community. So aftercare services include case management and the full continuum of recovery and aftercare services. So again, this was really for—I think I mentioned the shorter term, folks—but I think aftercare services is really for people moving from prison juvenile detention centers and those residential programs in jails. And can include human service and rehabilitation programming, such as educational, job training, parole supervision, halfway house or transitional recovery housing, and peer-group programs. But again, provide that ongoing support to maintain recovery after reentry. So in that sense, our set funds may be used to cover the costs associated with case management, continued access to medication and/or treatment or recovery support services, or even transportation to receive those services.

While we're still on the topic of aftercare, there are two pieces I just want to review. One is, to qualify as an aftercare program, the corrections-based RSAT Program staff really must work with state local authorities or community-based organizations involved in substance use disorder treatment to place program participants into the community-based substance use disorder facilities upon their release. So, the goal there being that there is a handoff between the corrections-based treatment program and a community-based treatment program.

You may also have noticed in the solicitation a preference for residential substance use disorder aftercare services. And as I said, aftercare may be residential or nonresidential, but before using RSAT funds to support non-residential substance use disorder treatment aftercare services, you do need to submit a certificate certifying that you will continue to provide an adequate level of residential substance use treatment aftercare services. So what that means is before you apply RSAT funds to a nonresidential substance use disorder treatment program, you need to submit this certificate, which is the last page of the solicitation to either myself or program staff, or if you already submitted it as part of your application, it is already uploaded into JustGrants.

So, that document needs to be signed by the Chief Executive Officer of the State and we retain it in JustGrants. And so, that just clears you to use our set funds for nonresidential substance use disorder treatment aftercare services. Hope that wasn't too confusing, but again, any questions we will handle it and support you as you move forward. But I hope the review of the different ways in which you can use RSAT funds in your state was helpful. I'm going to turn the presentation back over to Aja and our programs staff.

AJA PAPPAS: Thank you, Meg. Before I go onto the BJA Programs Office, I would just ask for those who maybe joined a little bit later to go ahead and please introduce yourself in the chat. Let us know where you're from and your role with RSAT. I would greatly appreciate that. Next slide, please.

As I mentioned, my name's Aja Pappas and I work with the Programs Office. I am a Division Chief and my division oversees the RSAT portfolio. I work closely with Renee Howell. She's on my team. She's a State Policy Advisor or Grant Manager. And she is also the RSAT lead. You will hear from her momentarily. Next slide.

So, what is the Programs Office? The Programs Office is responsible for providing you guys support in a timely and accurate manner across all of our BJA grant programs. One way we do this is through our grant managers and they are there to provide assistance and to review and approve grants management actions, such as reports and award modifications. Renee's going to discuss that in more detail. Your grant manager can also connect you to resources you may need to help in the management of your award. The BJA grant manager will help ensure your project is successful, compliant with award conditions and administrative requirements throughout the funding period. Your grant manager will assist with award acceptance, ASAP suspensions or holds as it relates to reporting, or ACM holds grant-award modifications and training.

One thing I did want to mention with the RSAT Program—I'm sure you guys who have had RSAT in the past have noticed this—you probably noticed you have a new grant manager. LaShawn Benton was the previous grant manager for the majority of the RSAT awards. We will miss her. But now, it is our division and you should see right there on the slide, it will show you where you can locate your grant manager's information in JustGrants. And you may see Renee Howell listed. You may also see Tammy Lovill, Winston Scurrit, or Nikisha Love. Either one of those individuals are on my team and they would be your RSAT grant manager. And they're all wonderful.

So, I just wanted to make that clear that that might be a change you've seen. And again, please check in JustGrants and you will be able to get their phone number and email and you can also reach out to me if you need any assistance. My information will be provided at the end. Next slide.

One other office that provides support during your award is the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, or OCFO. OCFO provides fiscal policy guidance, as well as accounting, budget, financial, and grants management. Specific to the RSAT award, OCFO may be involved, but not limited, to financial customer service for you guys, financial monitoring and financial closeout. And right here on this slide is OCFO customer service information, which you can also find through our BJA website. Next slide.

And now, I'm going to hand it over to Renee Howell and she will cover grants management overview.

RENEE HOWELL: Hi, everyone. Thank you, guys, for joining us. Some of you I've met, some of you I've talked to in person at the COSSUP conference, some of you I've emailed with. But as Aja said there in the beginning, I will be the RSAT, I guess program lead, along with your assigned Grants Manager. You can always reach out to me if you have a question or copy me on an email if you have a question. We are all here on the same division and here to support you guys in implementing your program as best as you can.

In the following slides, we'll be reviewing more of the grants management content and specifically going over—I know you guys may have some questions about the new Special Condition 46. So, if you want to go to the next slide, we will get that started.

This is the Grant Management Award Cycle, and we will touch on every single block as we go through this section from Award Acceptance to Award Closeout, and everything in between. As you can see, accessing your funds, the award conditions like I just mentioned, budget and financial information, administrative requirements reporting, we will have a section after this on reporting, as was mentioned. Anytime you need to do a grant award modification, and then monitoring, we will come out and hopefully see you guys, if not through virtual means, at least maybe in person. We can go to the next slide.

So, we want to start off with the roles in JustGrants for each of the members of your team who are working on the RSAT project. To start with, you have the Entity Administrator. And this is usually the same person as the SAM Electronic Business point of contact. But this person assigns the roles of the grant in JustGrants and also confirms that the Authorized Representative has the proper legal authority to accept or decline the award. You also have the Grant Award Administrator who—that's the person who submits the programmatic related award requirements, performance reports, any GAMS, all of those things would go into that person's assigned work list. Your Authorized Representative accepts or declines the award on behalf of your entity, and again, just to reiterate, that they have the proper legal authority to enter into those contracts when you make that decision. Keep that in mind.

And also, your Financial Manager who—they submit the financial information, the FFRs, as we call them, or the federal financial reports, on behalf of the entity. You can have the same person in multiple roles in JustGrants that's appropriate based on your agency's need, but just keeping in mind, especially if you have somebody who plans to exit employment at your agency, that you make sure you update the personnel on the grant before they exit so that you're able to access those different work lists, you have the proper people in place, so that any items that may need to be worked on can be done once that person exits working for your agency. Let's see. Let's go to the next slide.

So, we'll start with the first little tab, Award Acceptance. So again, using this a lot, but the grant award agreement is a legally binding contract with the federal government. So your Authorized Representative will accept that award and does have to have the legal authority to do so. And it is important, and we want to stress this, we'll stress it again when we get to special conditions, but we want to make sure that you read the terms and conditions of accepting the award. You will accept the award electronically. It says here that you have 45 days to accept the award through JustGrants. That is not really a hard deadline. We obviously would prefer, and you would probably prefer, the quicker the better so you can get your programming started. But if you need additional time, please contact your Grants Manager, as Aja showed you where to find that person. Please contact your BJA Grants Manager if you need additional time to get that award accepted. And I think we just put in the chat that there's some training resources for award acceptance online for you to review if you have never done that before, if you have new staff, you have new Authorized Representative and they've never done that before. But please if you're ever—for this could go for any grant award that we have here at BJA, but if you're ever contemplating declining an award, please contact us first to talk that through. Let's see. Next slide.

So, here, we're going to specifically talk about the steps in accepting your award. Your Entity Administrator will assign the roles as we talked about and they will also confirm the Authorized Representative, and hopefully, we might get these links up in the chat. But there are instructions on how to do that in that link. And then, the Authorized Representative will go in and accept the award after those role assignments have been made, as we've already talked about. And then, once it's been accepted, your award will go from ending with something behind it to Pending Active or Pending ASAP Notification. And if you do have, we will talk about this a little bit further on the next slide, but if you do have a Pending ASAP Notification, you will need to take some additional steps in ASAP in order to be able to draw down on those funds. So let's go to the next slide.

So, like I said, ASAP, accessing your funds. Everybody wants to be able to access their funds. Again, you must first accept the award in JustGrants and you must have your entity registered in the ASAP system, which there's a link there if you're not already registered. If you are already registered in ASAP, once you accept the award, it should just go to Pending Active. If you are not, you will have that Pending ASAP Notification, and within a certain amount of days, the Authorized Representative will get an email from ASAP in order to complete certain steps to register your entity in ASAP. If you do not get that email, reach out to your Grants Manager and we can help facilitate with ASAP on getting that email and getting your entity registered.

Let's see if there's anything else I haven't covered. We'll talk about this a little bit more because most of you will have an award condition hold if you have not already addressed it, but looking at your award conditions and looking at what holds have been placed on the funds through the award conditions, which would relay back to being able to access those funds. And again, if you have any suspensions in ASAP, maybe your SAM registration is expired or you have delinquent reports, as you progress on in your management of the project and you have delinquent reporting, that can trigger a suspension of your ASAP account and you would not be able to draw down on the funds. So just keeping all that in mind from starting to access your funds, when you first begin your program and your project through the entirety of the project itself, there can be award condition holds and suspensions in ASAP for lack of reporting being completed by the due date. We can go to the next slide.
So, I kind of covered all this, got a little bit ahead, but here are the steps if you're a new OJP grant recipient. You'll receive two emails, actually, from ASAP and here is the email address to kind of keep in mind if you want to check your spam filter, if you are new and you have not received that email. It's [email protected] to begin the registration process. Here's the contact information if again, you do not get that email, you can reach out to your Grants Manager, you can reach out to the OCFO customer service at their email or phone number here. And we've also provided you with some ASAP resource links. So kind of here's the steps, as we've been talking about. You enroll in ASAP, you accept the award, we add money to your account in ASAP. Once you get to a point where you have funds to draw down and you have expenditures that you want reimbursement for, you would request payment via ASAP for those expenditures, keeping in mind that you do have a tracking system in place for those expenditures on your end. And those approved payments can come fairly quickly within the same day, maybe the next business day depending on if you're on your holiday weekend. If you're toward the end of the month, there are several days toward the end of the month that ASAP, I believe, is down or doesn't do reimbursements just because of reconciliation. And keep in mind, we're not there yet, we're a little bit far away, but once you get closer to end of the fiscal year, ASAP is also down or a larger amount of time for the end of your reconciliation. So keeping those things in mind as you go —to request reimbursement for any expenditures. All right. Let's hit the next slide.

So, Award Conditions. I know we have at least one new one this year, but we want to make a point and stress to you guys reviewing your award conditions, reading through those award conditions, just like the terms and conditions I mentioned before, but specifically, award conditions one through 30 are applied kind of across the board here at OJP for all awards and the resource for those is also linked here on the slide. But once you get to award condition number 31, these are going to be more specific to your programming—and, in this instance, the RSAT programming. And you can have more than one withholding condition per award, which would prevent, as I said before, prevent you from drawing down on the funds. We will speak specifically to the new Special Condition number 46, but this could also mean you failed to provide certain attachments that were required for the solicitation as part of your application for different types of fund sources, it could mean a budget clearance wasn't issued. But specifically for this, what you're going to see the most is going to be probably your attachments, and also Special Condition 46, which is your narrative and your budget, which we'll cover here in just a minute.

Let's go to the next slide. So, there's a specific action or document, a withholding condition, that prohibits the draw down, as I say, could be related to a specific action or document. For example, an MOU or an FCQ, or something that was required as part of your application that was not submitted, you can have a hold for that. Your budget has not been cleared or there's cost that are being questioned within the budget that may or may not be allowable based on the project and/or other federal guidelines. And/or missing or insufficient application information not withstanding what I've already— examples I've already given, such as the MOU or the proposal narrative. If you see you have a hold and you're not sure what that hold is for, you can contact your Grants Manager and they should be able to walk you through what is needed, what you need to provide us in order to release the hold. Let's see. Next slide.

And the new Special Condition 46. I know that I sent an email out to everyone. Hopefully, you got that email regarding the new Special Condition 46. I just want to walk through that briefly. The requirement for this kind of replaces the previous budget clearance requirement and that we are asking you to upload your budget, the budget detail worksheet which has your project amount, your specific project amount for 2023. I know for a lot of you, it changed from last year to this year. So we'd be updating that budget details worksheet to include that correct project amount along with allowable activities. Make sure things that we're seeing with that budget that I just want to mention quickly is making sure that you have in that budget detail worksheet the narrative response in the sections below, each of the line items that give more of an explanation of what that line item is to be used for. Leaving that narrative section blank may cause the Grants Manager to send it back to you and request an update.

Additionally, you will also attach, along with your budget detail worksheet, your project narrative. And I know that you all submitted a project narrative with your application. But depending on the funding that you received, you may or may not have to update that project narrative or program narrative in order to better reflect the monies that you received in 2023. So, whether or not you have to update that project narrative, you will need to attach it as well to the GAM that you create with the budget detail worksheet. And don't forget other documents, such your indirect cost rate agreement if you are taking indirect costs or any other attachments that you would like to add to the GAM for the Grants Manager to review. You cannot draw down on your funds until this GAM has been approved. So there will be an award hold for that dollar amount. Let's go to the next slide.

So, we just want to talk about some allowable costs. Just a reminder, it's a favorite phrase of ours at the government that all costs must be allowable and reasonable, allocable, and necessary to the project per the DOJ Financial Guide. And we want to give you some examples of some unallowable costs. I personally have not seen any of these yet in any of my reviews but costs that do not support the project are costs— security enhancements or equipment to any non-government entity that is not engaged in criminal justice or public safety. The lobbying or fundraising, that's going to be across the board. Unmanned aerial vehicles or systems, big one that—I come from the state, big one, that we would talk a lot about when I was with the state, supplanting state or local funds. Supplanting is not allowable. And food and beverages are also not allowable. There's a little box in the bottom left-hand corner that's yellow, and this is a new one, prohibited and controlled equipment consistent with the executive order that's referenced here. Again, so far, my reviews, many of you have been doing this program for a long time. I have not come across any of these, but it's worth mentioning and putting that out there. Let's see, next slide.

And again, the Grants Financial Management Training. This training is assigned to the Grants Award Administrator and the Financial Manager of the grant. So it could be two different people, it could be one person, but it must be completed within 120 days of the grant acceptance. And for certain grant recipients, the funds, you will have hold. There will be an ACM hold until that documentation, the certification of completing that financial management training is provided to the Grants Manager who then uploads that into JustGrants. I believe we just put in the chat the link to the training. Keep in mind that it must be completed every three years. So, check back if you're the Grant Award Administrator or the Financial Manager on any of the RSAT awards, check and see when the last time you completed that training is. And if it was more than three years ago, you will need to go ahead and recomplete that training and send that certificate to your Grants Manager. Let's see, next slide.

We have another poll question. So we're going to submit that. Up here on the side, we ask you guys to all respond and we will touch on this in the coming slides. But does your project budget include these costs, subawards, procurement contracts, both subawards and procurement contracts, or you're not sure if you have subawards or procurement contracts in your budget? And I'll give you guys about a minute to respond. About 18 or 19 more seconds and we'll close the poll out. All right, Daryl, let's close this poll out and see what the responses are.

Most of you, subawards tracks honestly with the type of work you're doing. We do have some procurement contracts, and some with both. And, we'll touch more on the difference between subaward and procurement contracts as we go forward. But I believe I am passing it back to Aja, to take us on through that. Actually, look, it's actually in the next slide.

AJA PAPPAS: Thank you, Renee. Appreciate it. Thank you guys for answering that poll. I am going to talk about the administrative requirement regarding subawards and procurement contracts. We understand that sometimes it can get a little bit gray and confusing and so as always, when in doubt, reach out to your grant manager and we will definitely work with you and walk through some of your subawards or procurement contract requests.

The majority of you really should or already probably have subawards associated with your grant, and that's due to that pass through requirement that Meg mentioned about the 10% to local facilities. There may be a few who do not, and those are going to be case-by-case basis and we will work with them. And so, if you do plan to use grant funds to engage any third party for goods or services related to the project, that's going to be classified as a subaward or procurement contract. We want to make sure we're putting them in the right classification. And so, different grants, administrative requirements apply, so we want to classify that correctly.

The substance of the relationship should be given greater consideration than the form of the agreement. And so on this slide, as you can see, we have one side that talks about subaward and one side that talks about procurement contract. I believe the link for our subaward and procurement checklist was put into the chat. It's a very helpful tool. I highly recommend bookmarking that. And so generally a subrecipient is going to perform or carry out a portion of the federal award. And a procurement contract is more for the purpose of obtaining goods and services, or they are providing you some sort of good or service that are ancillary to the operation of the federal program that you are using your federal funds for. So an example with RSAT might be, if you have a therapeutic community and you contract with someone to create curriculum and they give you that curriculum and your staff are the ones that are presenting that curriculum, that would be a contract. If you had that same company, not only create the curriculum but present it during the therapeutic community, that would be a subaward because they're carrying out an actual part of the programmatic activities that you submitted.

One more example might be for those of you who use Medicated Assistant Treatment, or MAT, so if you contract with a company to provide the medications for MAT and they just are dropping that off at the facility and then you have your own internal staff who are administering it and monitoring it, that would be a contract, a procurement contract. If that same company is not only providing the medications but they are providing staff to go ahead and administer the medication and monitor the individuals, they're carrying out a part of your project, so that would likely be a subaward. So again, there definitely can be some gray areas, so please just reach out to us and we will definitely help you guys clarify that.

Next slide is a continuation regarding subawards. So this slide includes some details on requirements of subawards. The biggest piece for you guys to remember is that subawards require prior federal approval. So if you have written your subaward into your budget with sufficient detail or we have issued that—after the issuance of the award and then we go ahead and issue the ACM clearance, that's approval in itself of your subaward. However, if the budget or your narrative do not have any details on your subrecipient or work to be done and you later want to add in a subrecipient or maybe you need to change a subrecipient, that is going to require you to get separate approval from us through a GAM. And Renee had talked about the GAMs previously. Another big piece is your Pass Through Entities are required to have policies and procedures in place to manage and monitor all subrecipients consistent with federal requirements. And so, just remember that if you do have a subaward, any federal requirements that are attached to your award, those follow through to your subrecipient. They're required to adhere to those as well. And we may check when we're doing any sort of monitoring, whether it's virtual or in person, to make sure that you have those policies and procedures in place for your subrecipients. And again, if you don't have that or you need to bolster it or it needs to be more robust, that's something that we're willing to help you guys with. And we can also provide you guys some examples. Next slide.

Lastly, in regards to subawards is an administrative requirement is the Federal Funding and Accountability Transparency Act, or FFATA, and Pass Through Entities are required by FFATA to submit a specific report on each subaward that is over 30,000 by the end of the month following the date of issuing the subaward. You will not submit the FFATA report through JustGrants, but instead you're going to do that through a separate portal on the fsrs.gov website. These links will be dropped into the chat. And you'll want to refer to these resources for how to submit the FFATA report. Again, that link should be in the chat for you. Next slide.

So, the requirements for the procurement contracts are listed in our DOJ Financial Guide, chapter 3.8. And this is just a brief overview. I've kind of already touched on it, but procurement contracts must also be conducted in a manner to provide open and free competition. States and territories are exempt from the federal requirements on competition, but instead they must follow their own procurement standards. For all others, if you're proposing to use federal funds to issue a sole source or non-competitive procurement contract that's over 250,000, you must seek prior written approval from BJA and you would do that through a programmatic cost GAM. And we would approve that for you or deny that or walk you through that. And please refer to the guide for the full requirements on procurement contracts. The guide I'm talking to is the DOJ Financial Guide. We'll make sure that there's a link in there for you guys to review that as well. Again, any questions on this, just please reach out. Next slide.

So, additionally, I want to cover just a few other administrative requirements. This doesn't include all of them, but I did want to touch on these that are on the slide. And that's going to include the requirement to report any waste, fraud, and abuse of grant funds, if you become aware of it. That's listed right there. That link will also be put into the chat, as well as a requirement for suitability determination or determination of suitability. And that is in reference to interacting or participating with minors. Honestly, I don't see a lot of that with RSAT. However, if a program should be created that RSAT is, supporting, or any funds are related to, that may bring families together, for individuals that are in facilities, things like that, you're going to want to touch bases with us because we want to make sure that if you need to fill out the determination of suitability documentation and you guys are fully aware of those requirements. So again, any questions, just please go ahead and reach out to us. And these are included in your award conditions. As a reminder, you should thoroughly—and I know Renee said it, I'm going to say it again, but please read your award agreement and the conditions to fully understand any additional administrative requirements that may be applicable to your funding. Next slide.

And then as mentioned earlier, you will make payment requests in the U.S. Treasury ASAP system. Under this program, so under RSAT, you are not allowed to draw down all funds in advance. So you are required to follow the rule about the minimized federal cash on hand, meaning you should only draw down what is needed for immediate needs and any federal funds drawn down but not dispersed or reimbursed within 10 days have to be returned to OJP. So, and I haven't really seen any issues with this either recently, but you're on a reimbursement basis pretty much with this. Please know that the ASAP system suspends all accounts, as Renee mentioned, the last three business days of each month, except in September when it's suspended for the five business days, because of the transfer to the next fiscal year. Next slide.

Lastly, for Financial Management Systems, something that's really important, and we may, or we will, touch on this if you are selected for any sort of monitoring, whether, again, that is a virtual or remote monitoring or on-site monitoring is having a accounting or financial management system. So an accounting system that—we need to ensure that it's adequate for meeting the grants financial management requirements. So it must have specific features, some of which are listed on this slide. So to summarize, it must be able to track—it must be able to report and control all use of the federal funds. Again, the full list of what an adequate accounting system must be able to do is in that financial guide. That link has already been provided. Your accounting system will be subject to review, as I mentioned, if your award is selected for in-depth monitoring. Next slide.

So to continue with the Financial Management Systems, a big piece, I think, especially for RSAT is recipients and subrecipients are prohibited from commingling funds on either a program-by-program or project-by-project basis. As you know, RSAT is for four years. A lot of the times what we're seeing is that RSAT funding—it's rolled over to the next year. You guys are asking for no-cost extension is just part of how RSAT has worked since the beginning. And so, it's really important to ensure that you have a very clear financial system that is showing that your federal awards, let's say from your FY21 RSAT, is clearly separated from your FY22 RSAT. It's not a physical segregation of any deposits, but your accounting systems must ensure that they're not commingled with funds from like existing RSAT awards like I said or even any other federal funds or private agencies. Funds that are specifically budgeted or received for one project award may not be used to support the other. We typically—we'll just see you guys continue with some RSAT activities, which is fine, but they're typically separated because you guys are providing us a new application in what your program deliverables, et cetera, are going to be. And if your automated general ledger accounting system cannot comply with this requirement, then you're going to need to establish one that can do that. And that is something that may come up if you are again selected for in-depth monitoring and we were to find. We would work with you and create some stuffs that you will need to take to come into compliance. Next slide.

And another poll. So, before we go into the GAM process in more detail that Renee is going to cover, we want to know how familiar you are with that process. So, please answer the poll that Daryl will launch. And let us know if you're very familiar with the GAM or grant award, the GAM process, I apologize, or if you're somewhat familiar or you're not familiar. I'll give guys about 35 more seconds. If you're having trouble finding your poll, you can look to the right. You might see it under chat, it will say polling and you can click that caret to the left of the word and it would expand your poll if you're having trouble.

Daryl, let's go ahead and close that poll and launch those results. So kind of a mixed bag. We have a few that are saying they're very familiar with that Grant Award Modification. That's what I was trying to say earlier for GAM process. And then we have some that weren't able to answer in the poll. I understand some people are on the phone. They may have answered in the chat. So we're going to go ahead and move on to that process and I'm going to hand it right back over to Renee.

RENEE HOWELL: All right, guys, and we talked some about this earlier, but we just wanted to set aside a section for the Grant Award Modification overview. And really, a GAM is used to request changes that require prior approval. And the person who can submit that GAM is the Grant Award Administrator. If you remember back, when we went over the different roles toward the beginning in JustGrants, just to highlight here, and I want to say it out loud, I know it's highlighted, bolded, and underlined, but no changes to the purpose of the project or project title will be approved. We'll go through the two different types of GAMs that we have. One is Programmatic and one is Financial.

So, under the Programmatic, the Programmatic Costs GAM is costs that require prior approval or changes to your project narrative. If you need to alter your project activities, something's not working, if you need to add or change who you're subawarding to, if you need to change your project site or change key personnel staff, all of those things will be done through a Programmatic Costs GAM.

And then the Financial GAM is more when you're looking to do a budget modification. If you're looking to move funds that are with the award, within the budget between BJA and your agency, if you're moving more than 10% of the funds or you're adding money into a category you didn't have before, you didn't have supplies before, but you've recognized six months, eight months into the project that you need to purchase supplies to support the project, you will need to do the Financial GAM in order to move funds into that previously zero line item. If you have a sole source GAM or any sole source procurement contract in excess of the threshold, which is $250,000, you will need to do the Financial GAM or the budget modification GAM.

For the purpose of Special Condition number 46, I know I keep going back to that, but it is new, that I believe is a Programmatic Cost GAM. And we've sent you those instructions, and we may go through them here in a minute, on how to do that specific Programmatic Cost GAM. But if you're thinking about making modifications to your project, your project scope, your budget, and you're unsure if you need a GAM for those changes, reach out to your Grants Manager and they can walk you through what you need to do, what you need to attach, and the things that you need to do to accomplish getting that GAM approved in a timely fashion. So there's less back and forth. I believe there's also a resource here at the bottom, hopefully we can put it in the chat, about a training regarding Grant Award Modifications. We can go to the next slide.

So we did actually put this slide in. So this Programmatic Cost GAM for Special Condition 46. I know we keep going back to it. I know I keep going back to it. I've sent you emails on it. But really, one of the first steps that you're going to need to take in order to be able to access your funds. And we have some screenshots here if you don't have the email, if you want to take a screenshot, obviously again, we'll post it online afterwards. But you would go into the award in JustGrants, the Grant Award Administrator would, and go under that Grant Award Modification tab and you would select the type of GAM that would be programmatic and then you would select “Programmatic Costs.” And under that, you would select Other Costs and “Other" and type into the box "Special Condition 46." So that tells your Grants Manager, this is what your GAM is referencing. It's referencing Special Condition 46, and then we'll know what you need to attach if we go to the next slide.

Go back one slide. Sorry. I thought we had another slide in there. What you need to attach, and I'll reiterate that again, is your budget detail worksheet completed with your budget narrative sections and all allowable costs, and your project narrative, either updated or not depending, again, as I said before, whether or not you had to change any aspects of your programming due to your allocated amount in FY23.

AJA PAPPAS: I'll jump in. It looks like we might have lost Renee to some technology, the joys of virtual webinars. So the next GAM that you may or may not go ahead and decide that you want to submit is a Project Period Extension. So Project Period Extension GAMs are also known as No-Cost Extensions, or NCEs. And just for an extension of your project period, granting you more time but not additional funding. You may request a one-time up to 12-month project extension if you need more time to complete the project. But there are some requirements you must meet. You have to request that through JustGrants at least 30 days prior to the current end date. You must include a narrative justification and a revised timeline. An extension should not be requested solely to expend remaining funds. So you definitely want to give us a robust justification as to why you need to have your project extended. And, generally, no more than one extension not to exceed 12 months is approved. However, on a case-by-case basis, OJP will consider exceptions. You can see that DOJ Financial Guide, which we've provided you guys, or contact your grant manager if you would like any clarification or any more questions on that.

And Closeout real quick. So lastly, this will take you through the end of your project, right? We end with Closeout. So it's been a lot of information, but we're here at that last stage of the post-award grant life cycle. The Closeout must be completed within 120 days after the project end date. Although if the project is finished in an earlier reporting period, it can be completed instead of waiting for the project end date. I don't see that a lot with RSAT, but if it does happen in your case, we're happy to do that. All costs must be properly obligated prior to the project end date. But the 120-day liquidation period after the end date is to allow for any remaining expenditures to be made for authorized costs that were properly obligated. The grant-funding activities must have been completed by the project end date, with the only exception being project evaluations. And the grant Closeout is processed upon completion of the project, submission of the final performance and financial reports, PR or FFR as we call them, and drawing down funds in ASAP if needed and then we'll submit the closeout in JustGrants. There is a link in this slide, which I see Tammy went ahead and dropped in the chat. That will give you the resources on Closeout or you can reach out to us again. And with that, we have got through the lifecycle of the ward, and I'm going to hand it off to Eva to go over the performance reporting overview. Thank you.

EVANGELICA JUAREZ: Thank you, Aja. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Eva Juarez. I'm a Research Associate with the Planning Performance and Impact Team at BJA. Next slide, please.
So, this new orientation presentation will cover several topics related to Performance Management at BJA. We will discuss requirements for data reporting, including what you need to report, where reporting happens, when reporting is due throughout the year, and how to report data. We will share some data reporting and goal setting best practices to set you up for success. We will also share contact information and resources for you to get in touch with us if you need assistance with your performance, measures, or reporting at any time. Next slide.

What is Performance Management at BJA? Performance management is a process by which new grantees regularly collect data on their grant activities to determine whether they are implementing activities as intended and achieving their desired goals and objectives. Using performance measures that capture inputs, outputs, and outcomes over time enables pre-and post-comparisons that can be used to assess change. BJA has established performance measures or questionnaires for each grant program. These measures were included in the original solicitation that you responded to. We will also review specifics of your program's unique questionnaire during this orientation. You can find additional information and several resources on the Office of Justice Programs Grant Performance Measurement and Progress Reporting Information portal at the BJA performance website listed. Next slide.

Why does BJA use performance measures? Performance measures have many purposes and benefits to your program and for BJA. They allow BJA to look at your program holistically, as well as the local level, to identify areas of success, as well as potential opportunities for improvement. This also allows BJA to target training and technical assistance resources to subjects or localities that need them most. Additionally, BJA routinely receives data calls and requests, sometimes from the Congress or the White House, and relies primarily on the data provided by grantees during reporting periods to respond to these inquiries. BJA and OJP regularly track progress toward goals and reports, annual key performance indicators to leadership during budget formulations, as well as ongoing yearly monitoring.

Lastly, DOJ is required to comply with the reporting requirements of federal laws, including the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010, the Digital Accountability and Transparency Act of 2014, and the Grant Reporting Efficiency and Agreements Transparency Act of 2019. Not only does BJA benefit from performance measurements, but there are many benefits to grantees and your program. You should be systematically monitoring performance measures to include some of the data BJA collects, as well as your own programmatic data to help identify success as well as your areas of continuous improvement.

Monitoring performance measures can help you proactively address challenges and generate evidence that you are meeting your goals. This can lead to sustainability and continued resource advocacy for your program. The data you collect has the potential to show the impact, not just for your program, but for your organization. Next slide, please.

What data will I need to report? There are three required sources of data that you will use to report performance measures, narrative questions, and closeout questions. The performance measures questions for your program are a series of questions that measure outcomes of grant activities and demonstrate the accomplishments of goals and objectives of BJA programs. Grantees report on performance measures during each quarterly reporting period. A series of narrative questions related to the grantee's specific goals, objectives, barriers, and successes are also provided to grantees to be used for data reporting and are reported only in January and July. Finally, Closeout questions are a series of questions grantees will need to respond to only when activities have been completed and the grant is ending. Next slide.

Where do I report? The Performance Measurement Tool, or PMT, is the online data collection tool for OJP's grant recipients. It is structured as an online questionnaire and is available year-round. The PMT contains a lot of information and tools to assist you in your reporting. You can access the PMT by following the link on this page. If you are new to reporting, you should have received a welcome email with directions on how to create your account and access the PMT. You may have also heard that JustGrants is replacing the Grants Management System, or GMS, and the PMT in the coming months, but continue to report in PMT until you are given directions on transitions, and are instructed on how to report data directly in JustGrants. Next, please.

When do I report? This table outlines the type of data you'll report during each reporting period when your reports are due in the PMT, and whether you also need to upload your reports to JustGrants. As you can see from the alternative values under the second column, you'll only report on the narrative questions in January and July, and during the last reporting period of the grant activity, regardless of where that falls in the schedule.

As you can also see from the table, the PMT is only open for data entry during the month after the reporting period closes. The PMT is accessible year-round for you to review and edit your data, generate reports, and more. So you will need to contact the PMT helpdesk to help you unlock reports when you need to revise previously completed reports. Note that reports are due 30 days after the end of each reporting period.Next, please.

In order to submit your PMT report to BJA, you need to create a PMT report. Note that as of October of 2020, the GMS was replaced with JustGrants. The PMT report however, will continue to read PMT GMS report as its title. Regardless, the report will be uploaded to the performance reporting module in JustGrants. The PDF document will need to be generated and saved on your computer so that it can be uploaded to JustGrants with your regular semi-annual report. When creating your report, you will be given a chance to leave any comments about your data submission that you feel are relevant. Additionally, you will need to make sure you respond to the narrative questions prior to submitting each semi-annual report.

The first page of each performance measure questionnaire, as shown here, outlines additional resources that might be helpful as you report. It includes reminders about the program's goals and objectives. It also lists contact information for the PMT helpdesk and State Policy Advisors if you need to reach out with any questions. A direct link to the PDF version of the performance measure questionnaires can be found on this slide. Note that the version differs based on whether you receive an enhancement grant or an implementation grant. We like to know each program's goals and objectives as a reminder of why we are asking you to fill out this questionnaire each quarter. The measures are ultimately there to assess your progress towards the program's goals, which we will discuss in further detail later in this presentation. Next, please.

Now, we'll take a brief look at what is included in the RSAT Questionnaire. Questions focused on services provided number and types of participants receiving services and program completion. And the General Award Administration section will indicate whether there was grant activity during the reporting period and select the type of activities that your program funds. The Jail/Prison/Juvenile-Based Program section collects data on participants and services. The Court and Criminal Involvement for Jail and Prison-based program section is only completed at the closing grant and collects data on recidivism measures.

There are also sections on Aftercare Programs in Court and Criminal Involvement of Aftercare participants. Finally, there are the Semi-annual Narrative Questions that are completed every six months. These narrative questions allow for space for you to add any additional information or details you may feel be relevant to your program, but have not been given an opportunity to report previously. Next, please.

Data on Medication Assisted Treatment, or MAT, is of particular interest, and is asked about in the Jail/Prison-Based Program section. Additional information not covered there can be included in this semi-annual narrative questions. A couple other reminders for your reporting: individuals who engage in multiple services provided by your program can be counted in multiple sections. Please only indicate data for the reporting period you are reporting on, and include activities funded in whole or in part by your RSAT award. Next, please.

The Defining Goals and Objectives. When responding to the narrative questions in the PMT, you'll need to define the goals that you have for your program. Keep in mind, goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely. It is good practice to review your goals on a regular basis and reassess how you're doing. Make sure to use data to describe how you are doing, as well as anecdotes that describe some of the good work that you're doing. We want to set you up for success and offer a few tips and lessons learned. We therefore want to review common challenges when defining goals and objectives. It is important to write well-defined goals and objectives to clarify your priorities, and highlight criteria for success from the very beginning. The SMART mnemonic that you see here. We also see users through important dimensions of great goal or objectives. They should be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-based. We recommend that you re-evaluate your goals twice a year to determine whether they should be updated. And make sure to use your data to drive this process. Next, please.

Here you can see a few examples of well-defined SMART Goals that will set this program up for success. While the goals on the left are great goals, they are difficult to measure and not specific enough to measure success. Next slide.

Ensuring data quality. We would also like to share some tips to improve data quality that your program can do from the very beginning. It is recommended that it designates staff person coordinates all performance measure data collection and entry to ensure consistency. If this is the first time you'll report data, make sure you are familiar with the data you'll need to collect and report. Do this by reviewing the PDF version of the questionnaire. Ensure a backup person or persons are aware of the data collection and reporting process, so they can fill in if the designated staff person is unavailable or leaves the rule. Consider available data collection methods including case management systems or other databases, spreadsheets, tracking intake forms, or any other methods. If partner organizations are included in the program design, be sure to engage with them from the beginning of the planning process. Determine if formalized agreements are needed to ensure the necessary data is collected and the program meets its goals/objectives. Lastly, ensure all subrecipient data or data you receive from contract service providers is reviewed and validated before completing data entry. Next please.

Here's the BJA PMT Helpdesk contact information and a list of available resources that will provide you additional information as needed. Our office is open Monday through Friday, 8:30 to 5:00 p.m. eastern time, except for holidays. And we try to return every email within 24 hours. So please don't hesitate to send us an email even after business hours we'll reach back out to you. And on behalf of the BJA of the planning performance and impact team, thank you for your time, dedication, and hard work. And this concludes the orientation presentation. I will now turn it over to Andy Klein.

ANDREW KLEIN: Great. Thank you very much. Before I begin, I just want to say as the contracted TA provider, we're also an RSAT grantee. And I want to reassure you as complicated as everything is that we've just heard, Renee and Aja are wonderful and easy to deal with. And will answer all your questions. So don't be intimidated by all the slides so far. The BJA people so far have been wonderful for helping. Let's do the next slide.

Let's do a question here. Did someone for your agency attend the 2023 COSSUP/RSAT Conference in Crystal City a couple months ago? Let's give you a couple seconds to respond to that. I feel we should have music in the background now, like they have on game shows while you're waiting for the question, but I won't sing. Daryl, do we have the result yet? Okay, good. A lot of people went to that conference. We used to have an annual conference just for RSAT, then it was melded in with the COSSUP, which is a similar BJA grant program, criminal justice grant program. And then they were stopped during Covid, and they were started again this year. But I gather BJA's not going to have one in 2024, so they'll hopefully be working on a replacement conference, at least for RSAT. So stay tuned for that. Next slide.

What do we do? Advocates for Human Potential has been the contracted TA provider for more than a decade. If you go to our website at the very bottom there, it says rsattta.com, that's our website. If you just browse through that, you'll see what we have on there and what we offer. But we try to respond to what we believe are the needs of the RSAT community or what you ask us. And we try to have a number of different responses or techniques. It's not just providing written information, but a lot of phone work. The other day, a prison system was interested in having us meet with all their RSAT programs to sort of refresh the staff on modified therapeutic communities. And we actually went on site to do that. We do less travel now than we used to, and we did none at all during Covid. But we have a number of different manuals, et cetera, that we try to put up. We've been concentrating a lot on medication assisted treatment because that's been a big challenge for prisons and jails. We're now doing a lot on Medicaid, particularly as more and more states are applying for the Medicaid waivers to allow Medicaid eligibility for incarcerated people, which hopefully will really improve our ability to provide substance abuse and mental treatment within prisons and jails, et cetera.

But as I say, if you look at the website, you'll see a lot of different things on there that we're involved in, hopefully that you'll find interesting. One of the things you'll find too is a compendium where we try to keep up to date and have descriptions you've given us of every RSAT sub-awardee in a prison program, jail program, or aftercare program and other juvenile. And this is very helpful because we find the best TA is from your own peers. And so if you look through that, you'll find out what other programs you're trying are doing the same things that you're working on, or that may be able to give you some guidance. They've already developed a MAT program or became an OTP methadone clinic within their jail or prison. And they may be somebody that you can then reach out to, to find out how they did it or whether you should do it or not, et cetera. Next slide.

About four or five years ago, BJA asked us to help assemble a come up with the first guidelines on what an RSAT Program should contain. There was some RSAT direct research, but there wasn't a lot, so we borrowed from all correctional research and substance abuse research and mental health research and we were able to draw on a half a dozen to a dozen RSAT programs from jails and prisons to work on a committee to come up with these promising practices guidelines that have been developed that give guidance on what a residential RSAT Program should look like. And this was sort of the first guidelines we came up with. And programs I think have found it very helpful, particularly if you're starting with a new sub-award or if you're interested in what you should be funding for a subaward. This is a very important document that will help you develop idea of what you should be looking for and how do you evaluate a local program.

Hopefully this year we're working on a promising practice guidelines for the jail programs and non-residential programs, because those will be very different because they don't have, they're not going to be residential, and that you don't have to be in a separate pod. And they're going to be, by definition, very short. So we're talking about what do you do in an RSAT Program if the person's only going to be there for two weeks or a month? And what did the research tell us? What's the evidence tell us the best things we can do on those things? We also have monthly webinars where we try to pick topics and showcase what's going on in the field. I think this month's topic in November is on Medicaid, which we talked about before. We also just hosted a peer site where we try to find very good programs, model programs out there. And then we subsidize travel and expenses for teams of RSAT to go visit that program. Most recently, we were showcasing a program in Santa Cruz, California that has a very good women's RSAT Program and aftercare program. And I think we had about a dozen different correctional RSAT teams from around the country go and visit them on site for two days and learn from them and each other. In fact, the site visit was so successful that they formed a learning community and they're continuing to talk to each other about mutual programs. Next slide.

Once we developed the promising practice guidelines, we then developed a fidelity assessment program where we can—we used to do it on site, now we do it through the telephone and video calls—where we then can help you assess your program to see how you're meeting with the various core elements of the promising practice in evidence-based guidelines. So far, we've done 79 program assessments in prisons and jails. The reason why the numbers don't add up is the prison systems may have multiple RSAT programs and multiple prisons. So even though we were in 18 prison systems, that may have involved 40 different RSAT sub-awards. Those programs, they have nothing to do with funding. They're not there to punish you or tell you what you're not doing. It's there to help you know what your strength and weaknesses are. And if we find any strengths or gaps, we provide recommendations of what technical assistance is available or how best you can meet those guidelines.

For example, I just saw one across my desk this morning that the program didn't do an evaluation on criminal thinking or risk assessment, which should be part of a program. And they were just lacking a validated instrument that are readily available that we could show them of how to do that. The results aren't shared publicly. They are shared with BJA, the state administrative agency, and of course, the program—the jail or prison, where we did the assessment. So far assessments have been very great and they've really helped us because now when somebody says, "Gee, I have a problem on X," we can say, "Hey, Arizona has a fantastic prison program where they've developed a really great aftercare system, a reentry system for prisoners, even though they come out all over the state. So here's the people you ought to talk to."

And again, on the compendium, we also have the contact information of people you can talk to directly. Okay. Anyway, we're available. Hopefully we'll be able to see you in person at an annual conference in the future. But please let us know if you have any questions or any way we can help you. And if we can't help you, we'll know somebody who can and we'll let you know that. So let me turn this over. Next slide, please.Back to Meg.

RENEE HOWELL: Actually, I think Aja and I are going to cover this if Aja wants to come on camera. We're having some technical difficulties today.

AJA PAPPAS: So we're going to cover some additional resources that BJA has some specific to RSAT and some just in general. And then we're going to jump into the Q&A.I want to ensure we have a robust session for that. And so, please feel free to go ahead and start typing any questions you may have in our Q&A box and we'll get to that just momentarily. So next slide, please.

So, the first very good resource, if you don't have it already, that I highly encourage you to go ahead and bookmark is the RSAT FAQs. Meg worked very hard on this. It was actually Meg and LaShawn that worked very hard creating this FAQ. And the link is right there in the chat. And it's a living document and Meg's back, and I'm going to hand it on over to Meg so she can finish speaking to that.

MARGARET CHAPMAN: Hello, everyone. Thank you for bearing with my technical difficulties. Thanks, Aja, for picking up. Yeah. So the FAQ is something that we developed and published last year about this time or I think it was actually August of 2022. And as Aja pointed out, it is a living document in the sense that it was generated based on questions that you all have asked or many may have asked in the past regarding how our set funds may or may not be used. And so, we took the base of questions that LaShawn was able to assemble and I assembled, and we created this FAQ, but we intend to update it to capture answers to questions we've received since its publication, including questions you might ask today or in an email to us after the training. I do want to note that sometimes you ask questions that may take a bit of time. We try to move as quickly as possible but to respond to you, because we need to ensure that we're advising you in compliance with the statute. So sometimes that requires a little bit of a back and forth between Renee, Aja, myself. Sometimes we reach out to AHP for other like programs. But we try to get you a really thorough response as quickly as we can. And depending on the nature of the question, it may show up in the next FAQ. And we do that because we assume that a question that you might have, one of your peers might have. So the more we can kind of be helpful and useful to you, that's what we try to do. So, as this document is posted both on BJA's website as well as on AHP's website at that link that was posted for rsat-tta.com. So any updates to it will also show up there. But as I said, if you haven't already, put that in your bookmark or what have you. I would encourage you to do so because it can be very helpful or at least I hope it is very helpful. Next slide, please.

As many of you know, and was mentioned a couple of times in October of 2020, we launched new grants management and payment management system. So the new grants management system is Justice Grants System or commonly referred to as JustGrants, and Renee mentioned that a few times as well as Aja, and I think it was referenced as part of the performance measurement section as well. As was also mentioned, a new payment management system, and that's the Department of Treasuries automated standard application for payments or ASAP. So we've already talked about those systems a lot already. I just wanted to flag this site, because many of you and including us are still new to the system—it takes a while to learn and get comfortable with the system. So flagging this site, which serves as an information hub for resources, training opportunities, user support, FAQs, and also it allows, I think there's a sign up to receive a newsletter to get information on updates onto JustGrants. So definitely, as I said, bookmark the site for administration purposes. Next slide.

Another important resource is just flagging this page, which links to the Department of Justice Grants Financial Guide or the Guide, which serves as the primary reference manual to assist you in fulfilling your responsibilities to safeguard grant funds and ensure that they're being used for the purposes for which they were awarded. And Renee mentioned that this guide a number of times in terms of having value to guide you through proper use of grant funds. And so it should be, as mentioned, a starting point for all recipients and sub-recipients in ensuring that effective day-to-day management of the award. Next slide.

So some closing slides is this one to encourage you to stay connected to the Office of Justice Programs. As Aja mentioned, Office of Justice Programs is the umbrella under which the Bureau of Justice Assistance sits. And you can do that a number of ways using the links provided on the slide to newsletters and alerts, including new funding opportunities. Next slide, please.

And we want to encourage you to join us on social media and subscribe to BJA specific alerts using the links for Facebook and YouTube. And we also have “Justice Matters,” a great podcast series that we have pushed out, as well as “Just News from BJA." And so this concludes the presentation portion and I'm going to turn things back to Aja to address some of your questions. She's already encouraged you to put your questions in the chat. And if you—this is not your last opportunity, I hope, the biggest takeaway from this presentation is that we're here to support you. And so if you don't have a question now, but you want to confer with colleagues and come back to us with a question, you have our contact information, which I think will show up in this next slide. You can always ask that question after the session but if anything is popping up now, please feel free to put it in the Q&A box which is if you don't see it and you only see a chat box, -at least on my screen, there's three little dots and if you hit it and Q&A comes up and you can click on that and then enter your question. So take advantage of having us here or also take advantage of the fact that you now have a name and a face and can pose your questions.

AJA PAPPAS: Thank you, Meg. So yes, we'll go into the Q&A session now as Meg stated. I highly encourage you to use this time if you have any questions. You have policy here which is Meg, you have the TTA provider here, Andrew. We have Eva here for performance reporting, as well as myself and Renee, so any questions you may have, please go ahead and drop those in. I'll answer a few that came in privately. One question that came in privately was when I was speaking to the financial or accounting system that's expected with your award, as if that's also expected of sub-awardees, and it is. And so I mentioned earlier that any of your sub-grantees or sub-awardees that you pass through, you need to also pass through all federal requirements and all conditions of the award. They are an extension of you. And so you want to ensure that they are adhering and being good stewards of federal funding, so that would be a requirement.

And another—it wasn't really a question but someone wanted to give me their contact information to ensure they were informed whenever any decisions regarding the RSAT conference would be brought up. And so please go ahead and ensure that if your point of contacts are not correct in JustGrants, please go ahead and get those updated. If you need assistance with that, you can reach out to your grant manager or Renee as the RSAT Lead. If you are an individual that may not have access to JustGrants but plays a major role with your RSAT programming, feel free to shoot us an email with your contact information and we can kind of go from there. We do want to ensure that no matter the information we're putting out that we are reaching all of you. So it's imperative to ensure, especially in JustGrants, that your contact information is updated because that's where we go when we're looking for phone numbers, emails, et cetera.

MARGARET CHAPMAN: [INDISTINCT]

AJA PAPPAS: Go ahead. And that?

MARGARET CHAPMAN: And that is also the information we share with AHP to target some of their notifications and such regarding training opportunities and other resources that are released.

AJA PAPPAS: Yes, thank you. There is a question here in the Q&A that I am actually going to hand off to Andrew, probably between Andrew and Meg, but we have a question asking if there is a Medicaid RSAT Nexus webinar.

ANDREW KLEIN: Yes. A matter of fact, the webinar in November is going to be, I believe, on Medicaid. If you go to our website, it will announce each month what the webinar is later that month. And if we have our act together, which is about 50% of the time, it will tell you what the month after that is going to be. But I believe the next month will be following talking about Medicaid. As you know, only two states so far have been approved for the Medicaid waivers and then, it will be another year or so before these things really kick in. So we have some time but we should start planning for this now where it's relevant. But yes, the answer is if you look on our website, it'll tell you the date and time for the webinar that will talk about Medicaid and RSAT.

MARGARET CHAPMAN: I am also [INDISTINCT] to add, so that is a great opportunity through RSAT which is next Wednesday at 2:00 and on the rsat-tta.com site, there is— actually, I'll just do this instead of—I will put this into the Q&A which is the link to register for that webinar, as I can make this—sorry. Getting slow on the uptake with my chat bar. Okay. Hold on. I'm trying to put it in the Q&A bar. But anyway, I will get there. I will send the link for that. I also will send a link for two webinars that have already occurred that were supported through a different training and technical assistance provider but are also relevant to the new Medicaid 1115 re-entry demonstration waiver opportunity, and as Andy mentioned, two states have approved. Many states have been applying. But between these two webinars and this upcoming webinar, I think you'll come away with a good sense of what this may mean to you in the corrections space. And as soon as I can figure out how to hit send, it looks like Aja has sent a link to the [INDISTINCT] and trying to get you…

AJA PAPPAS: So, that's for the TTA request. There was kind of a question in here that they were on the AHP website and they couldn't get to the RSAT TA portion stating the website's a little busy. Just lots of information. And so they couldn't find help for the TA portion, so I went ahead and dropped a link in that takes you directly to the TA request. So hopefully that was helpful there and then, it also looks like this would be for Andrew that they may be having some difficulty on the website finding the calendar and webinars you were speaking of and getting to the Listserv.

ANDREW KLEIN: Yeah, if you go to the website, you'll see a picture of all the people who went to Santa Cruz. And then under that in orange, it says upcoming RSAT TTA webinars. And that's where they'll have the current webinar. And as Meg said, it's on November 15th. And we actually have in December will be access to recovery model which is an interesting innovative program that RSAT in Massachusetts use. So, those will be the next two webinars, that's right there on the homepage. And then, underneath, it says view and register and that will take you to a link to register for the webinars but you can sign up that day. You don't have to register in advance.

AJA PAPPAS: Yeah, I went ahead and put that link in there for the upcoming one, so hopefully that's helpful.

MARGARET CHAPMAN: Okay.

ANDREW KLEIN: Thank you.

MARGARET CHAPMAN: I did as well but also with the other link, so I wasn't able to put it in the Q&A, so I'm sorry that we're bouncing back and forth between chat and Q&A but the links to the other webinars I referenced are right above the links that Aja and I added just now.

AJA PAPPAS: So at this time, I do not see any additional questions in the chat or the Q&A. If you did happen to put a question in the chat and I missed it, please go ahead and ping me again in the chat or if anyone else…

RENEE HOWELL: I think we had two. I don't know if we covered it. There was talk about possibly allowing pre-release centers to use RSAT funding. Is there any more information about this?

MARGARET CHAPMAN: Say that again, Renee? I'm sorry.

RENEE HOWELL: Was there any talk about possibly allowing pre-release centers to use RSAT funding? Pre-release centers to use RSAT funding.

MARGARET CHAPMAN: So if that center is sponsored by the Department of Corrections or the county, I'm assuming that is a center that, almost like a transitional center, and often times they may not be run by the country or state, but they are contracted by the county or state to support pre-release planning like three or six months before someone transitions into the community. And as long as that sort of is a component of the RSAT Program, that would seem to be appropriate to me. And as I said, we'll answer these questions and I would recommend then just sort of round back with an email so we can kind of codify it for your particular state and request.

RENEE HOWELL: Yeah.

AJA PAPPAS: Renee, did you say there was another one?

RENEE HOWELL: No, I think it was just the follow-up to that. We understand sometimes, depending on where your state is at if you put our RFPs and it can be difficult in some of your smaller states with more remote areas to find qualifying grantees and we can work with you. Your Grants Manager, myself, Aja, we and Meg, Andrew, we can work with you to nuance out any specific questions you have if you're trying to, you know, reach a different type of subgrantee and develop an RSAT Program thinking kind of outside the box if you will.

MARGARET CHAPMAN: And I would also encourage you to reference the compendium but part of the objective there is to give some examples of programs that are applying RSAT funds and so some of them may be—I'm sensing that some of this is to sort of achieve that jail requirement in terms of path through to jails. And so there are examples of how jails are using funds or also, as Andy mentioned, going to be pushing out a promising practices guidelines for jails, as well as we've been historically—RSAT has sponsored these peer host site visits, so we're trying to keep a balance between prison and jail programs, again, just to kind of get the wheels turning in terms of applications of funds in different ways.

ANDREW KLEIN: If I could just add, Meg. Meg talked about the jail programs. For the first time, RSAT money used to be just restricted to sentenced people, people who are sentenced to jail or prison. The new jail substance abuse programs are now open to pre-trial detainees. So we know there are about eight million people who cycle through local jails every year. So it's really tremendously expanded the scope of what's available for RSAT programing. And it opens up whole new issues that we haven't dealt with before because usually when somebody was sentenced, they had already gone through intake and been detoxified or been involved in withdrawal management, but pre-trial detainees who are in the RSAT Program are just entering jail. So it opens that whole area to withdrawal management. And fortunately, BJA and the National Institute of Corrections have come up with new withdrawal guidelines. So these programs can now incorporate those withdrawal and give jails resources for that withdrawal management to set people up to go on to MAT and then to be released to the community with the first step of their substance abuse treatment. So those are really promising new areas that the states have not—we have not funded before. But I can see that there's not a jail in the country that couldn't use some additional funding to meet those new obligations that now fit under RSAT.

AJA PAPPAS: Wonderful. Thank you, Andrew, for that additional information. At this time, I don't see any additional questions or comments. So, I want to encourage that if anyone has anything after they processed, I know we did a lot of information this afternoon to please reach out. You will find my email in the chat box. Renee will add hers as will Meg and Andy—that information will be able to be found there and you guys can reach out to one or all of us. We work very closely together as stated throughout this presentation and our goal is to help you guys be compliant in your grant funding and get these services out to individuals who need them. So, please again reach out should you need anything and we thank you for your time and attention during this webinar.

DARYL FOX: On behalf of the Bureau of Justice Assistance and our panelists, we want to thank you for joining today's webinar. This will end today's presentation.