Funding Opportunities for Your Community in 2024: Behavioral Health

Transcript also available as PDF.

DARYL FOX: Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's webinar, “Funding Opportunities for your Community in 2024: Behavioral Health,” hosted by the Bureau of Justice Assistance. At this time, it's my pleasure to introduce Michelle Garcia, Deputy Director for Programs within BJA, to begin the presentation. Michelle?

MICHELLE GARCIA: Thank you so much, Daryl. Hello, everyone. As Daryl said, I'm Michelle Garcia. I'm with the Bureau of Justice Assistance. And I'm joined today by my colleague, Brooke Mount, who you will meet shortly.

Today, we're going to provide an overview of the Office of Justice Programs as well as the Bureau of Justice Assistance, focus on our planned behavioral health solicitations for fiscal year 24, provide you with some resources that can assist you as you're preparing applications and if you're successful in managing awards, and we've also allocated some time to answer any questions that you might have.

So, before we start, I want to hear a little bit from you and, first, get an understanding of: “Have you previously applied for BJA funding?” So, if you could please take a moment and answer the question in the poll that should have popped up on your screen. We'd like to know more about what your experience has already been. Give folks just a few more seconds to respond.

All right. Daryl, could you close the poll for us please? All right. So, it looks like we have quite a mix. Almost 50/50 in terms of participants who have previously applied for BJA funding versus those who have never applied for BJA funding.

Our second question is, "Have you been successful in applying for BJA funding and actually received a BJA award?" And one of the things that I'll note as we go through many of our solicitations today is that for most of our discretionary or competitive awards, we receive vastly more applications than we're able to fund in any given year. And so, if your experience has been that you've applied but you've not received funding, that is not necessarily something specific about you or your organization or the work that you're doing: It means that often we have limited resources and have to make difficult choices.

All right. Daryl, can you go ahead and close that poll please? All right. So, interestingly enough, we are, again, at about 50/50 in term of folks who have been successful and have not been successful in applying for and receiving BJA funding. As I mentioned, we'll give you some resources, either for those of you who have not applied before or perhaps are looking for resources to bolster subsequent application, at the end of our presentation.

For those of you who may not be as familiar with the Office of Justice Programs, we are one of three grant-making entities within the Department of Justice, along with the Office on Violence Against Women and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. Within the Office of Justice Programs, or OJP, there are actually six program offices that all provide grant funding. Our focus here today is on BJA or the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

BJA celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. We were created in 1984 to reduce violent crime, create safer communities, and reform our nation's criminal justice system. And we're led by our director, Karhlton F. Moore.

Our work really focuses on three areas. First, making investments. We provide funding to communities all across the nation in order to address their criminal justice and criminal justice-related needs.

We also work to share knowledge. We have a network of training and technical assistance providers, subject matter experts who are working to create resources and put that information out into the field to drive best practices and innovation.

And then engagement. We're consistently engaging at the national, state, and local levels to hear from you about what your needs are, what resources you are seeking, and how we can partner with you to meet those needs.

This fiscal year, we have over 80 planned solicitations. And I will tell you where you can get more information on those, so you don't have to try and capture all of those right now. I do want to note that, as you may know, we are currently operating under a continuing resolution and don't have our full fiscal year '24 budget. So, all of the grant programs that we are going to talk about today are all planned solicitations, and those are subject to change depending on appropriations or legislative changes that may still occur.

So, as I mentioned, I'm going to tell you where to find more information, and if nothing else, these two websites are ones that you should bookmark for your resources as you go forward. On the left is the webpage for all of the BJA solicitations. As we release solicitations, we put them up on our Available Funding page. And—so you know where we are in our funding cycle—we are really at the starting point of it and only beginning to release solicitations. We have three solicitations that are currently live, and we'll have more coming out daily and weekly as we go forward through the year.

If you go to the BJA Current Solicitations page, you'll see everything that is open. You also have the ability to do a keyword search. So, if you are looking for funding for a specific need—maybe that's crisis intervention training, maybe it is reentry services—whatever that is, put those terms into the keyword search and you'll find the planned solicitations that could address those needs.

Similarly, if you look at the resource on the right, the Department of Justice Grant Program Plans shows all of the planned solicitations for all six of the Office of Justice Programs offices, as well as the Office on Violence Against Women and the COPS office.

So, these are two really useful resources to try and find funding to match what you are doing and what your needs are.

Within BJA, we have two types of grant programs: formula and discretionary. Formula grants are typically awarded on a non-competitive basis, which usually means that every eligible applicant receives some funding. The amount for funding for a specific agency or jurisdiction can vary based on a variety of factors, which often include population and crime rates. Most formula programs are administered by a state administering agency, or an SAA. And if you don't already have an active relationship with your SAA, I encourage you to start one today. If you don't know who your SAA is, you can find a complete contact list on our website.

For discretionary grants, you as an applicant, would apply directly to the Bureau of Justice Assistance. So, these grants are typically competitive, and the awards are based on predetermined review processes and the availability of funds. Like I said earlier, most programs, we receive more applications than we actually have funding for, so we try to fund the strongest proposals based on objective review criteria.

So, I'd like to highlight just a few of our formula grants. The first is the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant. This is our flagship grant program and the largest source of federal justice funding. We have two states, local jurisdictions, and tribes. The Byrne JAG fund is actually pretty diverse. It funds nine different program areas. And as we talk about behavioral health, you'll see that it includes providing support for drug treatment and enforcement programs, mental health programs, and the ninth purpose area, which was recently added, includes implementation of state crisis intervention court proceedings and related programs or initiatives.

Byrne JAG are formula funds, so these go to states or the SAAs, as well as directly to local units of government. To give you an idea of the scope of these awards, last fiscal year, we made 56 awards to states, territories, and the District of Columbia, totaling over $209 million and, to date, 949 awards to units of local government totaling over $96 million. We anticipate the solicitation for 2024 will be released early this summer.

The second formula program I wanted to mention is our Byrne State Crisis Intervention Program, or SCIP. This is a program that was created under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which is focused on reducing gun violence and saving lives. The funds are available over five years, $150 million per year for FY22 through FY 2026. And they can support a wide range of activities, including state crisis intervention, court proceedings, and other related programs or initiatives, like Extreme Risk Protection Order programs and other activities to keep guns out of the hands of those who might pose a threat to themselves or others.

For states who receive these funds, they have to establish a state crisis intervention advisory board made up of a diverse group of multidisciplinary individuals who are actively determining how these funds are awarded in their state. Again, I encourage you to reach out to your state administering agency to learn more about how your state is intending to use their Byrne SCIP dollars.

And then the last formula program I want to mention is our Residential Substance Abuse Treatment Program for state prisoners. Again, this is a formula grant program. So, this provides funds to states to support a wide range of activities, including things like enhancing the capabilities of governments to initiate or continue evidence-based substance use disorder or co-occurring substance use and mental health disorder treatment programs in prisons or jails; increasing the number of prisons and jails offering medication-assisted treatment to incarcerated individuals; preparing individuals for reintegration into communities, including supporting continuity of treatment; and assisting individuals and communities through the reentry process by delivering community-based treatment, recovery, and other broad-based aftercare services.

Again, these funds are awarded to the state administering agency who then passes those funds down to local entities and correctional institutions. I'm now going to turn it over to my colleague, Brooke, who is going to talk about some of our discretionary or competitive grant programs. Brooke.

BROOKE MOUNT: Thank you so much, Michelle. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Brooke Mount, and I'm a senior policy advisor in the Justice and Mental Health Team here at BJA. I'm now going to discuss the planned FY24 discretionary grant opportunities that will be coming available over the next few months, that focus on behavioral health.

Here is a list of the specific programs that I will be providing an overview of today. These programs are designed to support behavioral health in a multitude of ways, catering to diverse needs and populations.

The Adult Treatment Court Program supports state, local, and tribal efforts to plan, implement, and enhance the operations of adult treatment courts, including tribal Healing to Wellness Courts. Adult treatment court programs are a tool for criminal court partners and the judiciary to facilitate coordinated approaches that address the needs of nonviolent individuals involved in the justice system who have substance use disorders and/or co-occurring mental health needs.

These courts effectively integrate evidence-based substance use disorder treatment, random drug testing, equitable sanctions and incentives, and recovery support services in judicially supervised court settings to reduce recidivism and substance use and misuse, as well as prevent overdoses.

These initiatives can incorporate cultural elements and approaches. Examples of strategies or activities that can be funded include clinical or medication-assisted treatment, case management, training on overdose prevention and making take-home naloxone available, transitional recovery housing assistance, peer recovery support, and management information systems.

The Collaborative Crisis Response and Intervention Training Program, or CRIT, is an opportunity to assist law enforcement and correctional entities in developing and implementing crisis response training programs. This program supports partnerships with mental health, substance use disorder, and community service agencies to improve appropriate and effective responses to individuals in crisis who have behavioral health conditions; intellectual, developmental, or physical disabilities; and to achieve safe outcomes for all individuals in the community.

Examples of strategies and activities that can be funded through this program include creating, designing, or implementing a new or enhanced training program in line with BJA's CRIT curriculum; analyzing existing training and deployment policies and practices in collaboration with local stakeholders and agency staff; adopting and implementing new technology to track training implementation; and defining tracked process measures, as well as short and long-term program outcomes.

Next slide please. Thank you.

The Community Courts Initiative supports state, local, and federally recognized Indian tribal governments to establish and enhance community courts in their jurisdictions. Community courts are neighborhood-focused court programs that combine the power of the community and the justice system to address local problems. They connect persons to judicially supervised behavioral health treatment, alternative sanctions, and other community-based services.

The funding is available in two different categories. Category 1 provides funding to plan or implement community court programs that address substance use disorders and other issues using evidence-based principles and practices, while Category 2 provides funding to enhance existing community court programs that address substance use disorders and other issues using evidence-based practices and principles as well.

Although these projects may have differences, in general, they all rely on a set of common principles and practices, including enhanced information; utilizing more specialized staff training, combined with more comprehensive information to help improve the decision making of judges, attorneys, and other justice system officials; community engagement by engaging residents and people with lived experience to help identify, prioritize, and solve community safety, public health, or other social issues within a jurisdiction; collaboration by bringing together justice system stakeholders; individualized justice by using evidence-based risk and needs assessment instruments to link individuals to tailored community-based services; accountability by employing community restitution mandates and regular compliance monitoring to improve accountability and outcomes by collecting and analyzing data on an active and ongoing
basis to evaluate the effectiveness of operations and encourage continuous improvement.

The Comprehensive Opioid, Stimulant, and Substance Use Program, or COSSUP, aims to reduce the impact of opioids, stimulants, and other substances on individuals and communities by supporting comprehensive collaborative initiatives. COSSUP funding provides necessary resources that allow communities to respond to illicit substance use and misuse to reduce overdose stats, promote public safety, and support access to treatment and recovery services in the criminal justice system.

COSSUP supports units of state, local, and tribal governments to plan, development, and implement comprehensive efforts that identify, respond to, treat, and support those impacted by illicit opioids, stimulants, and other drugs. Allowable use of funds include front-end diversion, overdose response, overdose mapping, data collection and research, overdose fatality review, jail-based programming, access to treatment and peer-recovery services, drug take back and disposal programs, court and prosecution diversion, child welfare, and harm reduction efforts
The program also promotes cross-system planning and coordination to deliver a broad range of evidence-based culturally relevant interventions.

The Connect and Protect: Law Enforcement Behavioral Health Response Program supports law enforcement and behavioral health cross-system collaboration to improve public health and public safety by improving responses to and outcomes for individuals with mental health disorders or co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders.

Through this opportunity, BJA provides grant funding to help entities prepare, create, or expand comprehensive plans and then implement these collaborative projects to target people who qualify. Funding opportunities include to design and implement the crisis response program, such as case management, crisis intervention teams, co-responder teams, and mobile crisis teams; training and coordination for police and mental health collaboration; data collection to inform practices and develop policies; resident engagement via outreach and education to improve public health and safety; enhancement of officer knowledge and skills in responding to community members with mental health disorders; and the use of technology to collect calls for service data involving people with behavioral health needs.

Please note that with this program, all applications do require a demonstrated partnership through a draft memorandum of understanding between a justice entity and a mental health partner.
The Encouraging Innovation Field Initiated Program seeks to prevent and reduce crime and enhance the criminal justice system through innovative approaches that accelerate justice by identifying, defining, and responding to emerging or chronic crime problems and systemic issues using innovative approaches. The program supports strategies to address these issues including trying new approaches, addressing gaps of responses, building or translating research knowledge, or building capacity.

It furthers our mission by providing resources to support state, local, tribal, and territorial efforts to reimagine their approaches and strategies; to enhance fairness and access to justice; prevent and reduce crime, including violent crime; prevent and respond to overdoses; support crime victims; improve relationships and build trust between communities and the justice system; as well as increase access to justice and supportive services and advance innovative improvements within the justice system.

The Improving Adult and Juvenile Crisis Stabilization and Community Reentry Program provides funding to state, local, and tribal governments, as well as community-based nonprofit organizations to enhance or implement clinical services and other evidence-based activities or services to improve reentry, reduce recidivism, and address the treatment and recovery needs of people with mental health, substance use, or co-occurring disorders that are currently involved in the criminal justice system or were formally involved. Activities that can be funded include screening and assessments, clinical treatment and recovery services, continuous care coordination, and planning and wraparound services.

The Integrated Treatment for Individuals with Co-occurring Disorders in the Criminal Justice System is actually a brand-new program we are anticipating this year. BJA will be seeking a training and technical assistance provider with expertise in supporting communities to promote access to treatment for justice-involved populations with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. The TTA provider will then administer up to 12 subawards to local demonstration sites who will identify innovative alternatives to incarceration, while engaging prosecutors and court personnel to plan and connect people to treatment services while maintaining accountability to the community.

The program will promote cross-system collaboration among justice stakeholders, behavioral health service providers, and community support organizations to improve access to coordinated and integrated treatment for individuals in the criminal justice system with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. The TTA will focus on the post-arrest, pre-disposition phase of the criminal justice system by identifying people with complex behavioral health needs who are moving through Intercepts 2 and 3 of the Sequential Intercept Model.
The Justice and Mental Health Collaboration Program, or JMHCP, supports innovative cross-system collaboration to improve responses to and outcomes for individuals with mental health disorders or co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders who are in the justice system or reentering the community. JMHCP also supports courts, prosecutors, and community supervision with training, technical assistance, and tools for the early identification of people with mental health disorders who may need behavioral health system interventions. JMHCP promotes cross-discipline training for justice and treatment professionals and facilitates communication, collaboration, and the delivery of support services for people with behavioral health needs. To be eligible, states, tribes, and local governments must partner with a mental health authority.

Funding examples include programs that support cooperative efforts by public safety officials and service providers at any point in the system to connect individuals with treatment and social services; promote diverse court-based strategies such as deflection and diversion to treatment from the criminal justice system; supportive approaches in community crisis care such as crisis response centers and mobile crisis teams, and supportive supervision as crisis calls increase to the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline; and justice and mental health collaboration programs that have a focus on pretrial, prosecution, defense, courts, probation, parole, and/or capacity-building for criminal justice professionals, to target individuals with mental health disorders at risk for recidivism.

The Kevin and Avonte Program: Reducing Injury and Death of Missing Individuals with Dementia and Developmental Disabilities provides funding to reduce the number of deaths and injuries of individuals with forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer's, or developmental disabilities such as autism who—due to their condition—wander from safe environments. This program provides funding to law enforcement and other public safety agencies to implement locative technologies that track missing individuals. And it provides funding to such agencies and partnering nonprofit organizations to develop or operate programs to prevent wandering, increase vulnerable individual safety, and facilitate rescues. Activities that can be funded include a locally based proactive program, tracking technology, public awareness of missing persons, prevention and response information, community partnerships, and alert or notification systems.

The Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program enhances the capacity of regulatory and law enforcement agencies and public health officials to collect and analyze controlled substance prescription data and other scheduled chemical products through a centralized database administered by an authorized agency. The goal of this program is to support state and local governments in detecting and preventing the diversion and misuse of pharmaceutically controlled substances such as opioids and other prescription drugs.

Examples of activities that can be funded include providing training for system users; supporting collaboration among law enforcement, prosecutors, public health officials, treatment providers, and drug courts; facilitating electronic information sharing among states in compliance with the prescription monitoring information exchange national architecture; developing different methods for collecting information; identifying differences in various PDMP procedures, rules, state regulations, capabilities, and policies; bringing together stakeholders with different perspectives; sets of information and methodologies to examine the impact of various policies and procedures on patients and the community, as well as implementing proven practices on a larger scale.

The Second Chance Act: Improving Substance Use Disorder Treatment and Recovery Outcomes for Adults in Reentry Program provides funding to establish, expand, or improve treatment and recovery support services for people with substance use disorders during their incarceration and upon reentry into the community. Activities that can be funded include implementation or expansion of substance use or co-occurring substance use treatment services, recovery support services, hiring personnel, medication to support substance use disorder programming, harm reduction or reentry transitional or recovery housing, as well as contract for in-reach or continued treatment recovery support services, screening and assessment tools, information sharing, and process and outcome evaluation.

The Second Chance Act: Pay for Success Program provides funding to state, local, and tribal governments as well as community-based nonprofit organizations to enhance or implement clinical services and other evidence-based responses to improve reentry, reduce recidivism, and address the treatment and recovery needs of people with mental health, substance use, or co-occurring disorders who are currently involved in the criminal justice system or were formally involved. Activities that can be funded include enhancing contracts to provide individualized reentry services, managing a performance- or outcomes-based reentry services contract, training, providing permanent supportive housing, managing the PSH contracts, and data collection and performance evaluation.

The STOP School Violence Program provides funding to support threat assessments, mental health training, anti-bullying training, and technology solutions such as anonymous reporting systems. The ultimate goal of this program is to provide students and teachers with resources to recognize and prevent school violence. The COPS Office administers a companion program that is focused on doors, locks, cameras, and other target-hardening measures—and we really encourage you to visit the COPS Office website for more information on that program.

Every community can benefit from this program. Funding activities include providing resources, training, and technical assistance to develop toolkits, model policies, practices, and templates for the field; employing a multidisciplinary TTA delivery team; maintaining an online clearinghouse; identifying and addressing current and emerging school safety threats; developing interactive web-based toolkits; identifying promising projects, practices, and deliverables; tracking STOP in-school violence grantee activities and successes; collecting and disseminating information on school safety; and raising awareness of BJA's school safety programs.

The Veterans Treatment Court Program supports state, local, and tribal efforts to plan and implement or enhance the operations of veterans treatment courts. These courts effectively integrate evidence-based substance use disorder treatment; mandatory drug testing, incentives, and sanctions; and recovery support services in judicially supervised court settings that have jurisdictions over veterans involved in the justice system who have substance use disorders, including those who have a history of violence and PTSD as a result of their military service.

Funding can also support efforts at the state level to assess, collect data, evaluate, train, and build or enhance local or tribal veterans treatment courts, or to increase the identification and access to services for those who are underserved. Examples of strategies and activities that can be funded include early identification of potential veterans for referral, enhancing recovery support services, providing transitional recovery housing assistance, training on overdose prevention and collaboration between state, local, and/or tribal jurisdictions.

The Virtual Reality De-escalation Training Program provides funds to state, local, campus, and tribal law enforcement to enhance training via the utilization of fully immersive virtual reality-based technology. The training should improve responses to individuals in crisis and as well as improve de-escalation skills of participants. Examples of strategies and activities that can be funded under this program include the reporting on existing technology platforms and assess how integrating VR tools will add value, creating and/or enhancing agency-wide strategies for the integration of immersive virtual technology scenario-based training, developing evidence-based course content and scenarios using the virtual reality technology, tracking and assessing activities undertaken with the new technology, working with the training and technical assistance provider to share policy and practices among agencies participating in the program, as well as improving responses to individuals in crisis and de-escalation skills.

And finally, I'm going to share some information on the Bureau of Justice Assistance National Training and Technical Assistance Center—or BJA's NTTAC facilities—that deliver training and technical assistance to the criminal justice community and really serves as a one-stop shop for BJA's justice-related training and technical assistance. By providing rapid expert-coordinated and data-driven TTA, the BJA NTTAC team supports practitioners in their efforts to reduce crime, recidivism, and unnecessary confinement—making communities safer.

Utilizing a vast provider network, the BJA NTTAC team connects states, local, and tribal justice agencies with subject matter experts to address their community's specific public safety needs. NTTAC is available to provide information to grantees and criminal justice professionals to replicate model programs and approaches. Objectives of the NTTAC is to increase knowledge and use of best practices, emerging technologies, and new models. They support agencies and jurisdictions to identify and address operational and programmatic needs. But the TTA is available also to non-grantees as well, such as applying for funding or to send a team to visit a peer-to-peer site. I'm now going to hand it back over to Michelle who's going to talk about grant application and administration resources.

MICHELLE GARCIA: Thank you so much, Brooke, and thank you to everyone who has been submitting questions—I have been trying to keep up with those.

One of the things that I will note is that specifics about some of the FY24 solicitations, we're not able to answer completely as those solicitations have not yet been released. 

But I do encourage you to look at prior-year solicitations; in many cases, our solicitations are very similar from year to year, and it'll give you at least some guidance as to what some of those answers might be. But again, there may be changes depending on final budget appropriations and legislation.

So, we want to provide some resources that can help you as you're considering applying. First, as I said, as we release solicitations, we will post them on our website. It'll include a brief overview of the release date, the deadlines for applying. And I do want to note that you will see two deadlines for application: First, the Grants.gov deadline and then a JustGrants deadline.
The application process for BJA and OJP funding in general is a two-step process. The first, doing a very simple submission of a couple forms and some information in Grants.gov, which will then give you the ability to submit your full application in JustGrants.

You can download a copy of the solicitation, but I suggest you start with the solicitation overview document. So, for almost all of our solicitations, we've now prepared solicitation overview documents; that is, really, a one-pager that talks about the solicitation in terms of who can actually apply, why might you want to apply, what the maximum amount per each award is, and then some of the priority areas we have, as well as suggestions for activities or examples of activities that can be funded. This is a great place to start to see if the program that you are interested in funding or the activities that you are interested in supporting would actually be eligible under the solicitation, and then downloading the full solicitation to get all the details related to that solicitation.

We also—for almost every solicitation we release—we hold a companion webinar specific to that solicitation, where we will go through it, the requirements, the training and technical assistance that might be available to grantees, and also answer questions you have about that funding opportunity. So, as we post those solicitations, the links to the webinars will be on those pages. You can also go to our funding webinars overview page and see those as they're posted.

This particular presentation that you're attending today is the first in a series of presentations we're doing around our planned FY24 funding opportunities, focusing on different program or purpose areas or types of organizations. So tomorrow, we are hosting a webinar specifically on funding opportunities that are available to community-based organizations that actually goes across the spectrum of the types of programs we support.

And you can see we have additional ones coming up in the next few weeks as well. I'll also point out a specific one: On February 26th, we're hosting a webinar on the federal funding process. So, if you've never applied for federal funding before, this is a great session to attend to get an understanding of what is required, some of the things you should be thinking about, and how you can start to prepare to potentially submit an application.

As you work to put together an application, I want to point you to the OJP Grant Application Resource Guide. This is really the A-to-Z resource for all parts of the application process. Prior to joining BJA, much of my career was actually spent in the nonprofit sector applying for federal dollars and many times from the Office of Justice Programs. And I will tell you this was an invaluable resource, as I was working on applications, to help me when I had a question.

Another resource that BJA has to offer is that we have provided examples of successful applications for many of our different solicitations. We often hear from applicants, "Can I see what someone else proposed that was successful in getting a grant award?" And we've worked with successful applicants who've been willing to share their applications so that that can be a resource to you as well. We are working to add more examples each week that goes by.

And then as I mentioned, our application process is a two-step process where you'll submit most of the application—and if you do receive award, where you'll actually manage that award—is in our electronic grants management system or JustGrants. You can go to the JustGrants website to gain more information, to see job guides, to seek training videos, to connect one-on-one with user support to help you as you're working in the JustGrants system. We also have application assistance available both through Grants.gov and JustGrants by phone or by email as well. And we encourage you to reach out to these resources.

And then it can be also helpful as you're applying to look at the award recipient resources to get an understanding of what is required of grantees once they actually receive an award. So, if you go to the site, you can see the DOJ Grants Financial Guide to get a better understanding of the financial requirements of managing your award, some of the consistent reports or forms that you'll have to submit, the systems that you'll be operating in as well.

And then, as I said, we are early in our solicitation cycle, just starting to release these. You can actually subscribe to get alerts for whenever OJP releases a funding opportunity. So, if you go to ojp.gov/subscribe, you can actually register to get the Funding News, which is a weekly notice of our grant opportunities and application tips. You can also text your email address to OJP at 468-311 to have your email be subscribed to those alerts.

And then also you can follow us on social media. As we're releasing solicitations, we are posting those on social media and also providing additional information and resources. And also on our website, we'll be putting all of those solicitations.

Lastly, as you're working on your application or you're reviewing a solicitation and you have questions, please reach out to the OJP Response Center, who can address any of those questions that may have not been addressed in other places.

With that, we are going to see what questions that you have and that we are able to answer in the time that we have remaining.

So, I will start, and again, thank you for the many questions in the Q&A. As Daryl has put in the chat, please use the Q&A so we can try to—both in text and verbally—respond to your questions. And so, I'm going to go through these just to ensure that people have seen and are aware of them.

The first question was, "Is adult treatment court the same thing as drug court?" Yes, the Adult Treatment Court Program was previously named the Adult Drug Court Program.

"If you have a current BJA grant, can you apply for a new one when it's the same program?" I will say, it depends. In some solicitations, there are multiple purpose areas. So, if you're an existing grantee, you could apply under another purpose area. For some solicitations, they are separated into a planning and development stage and then an implementation stage. So, you could have received funding for planning and development and then received subsequent funding for implementation. Or in some cases under solicitations that you have an award for, you could actually apply for another award to either expand or enhance what it is you're doing. So, really look at the solicitations when they come out and it will detail what is allowable and what isn't.

Someone noted they didn't see a deadline on the COSSUP grant. That solicitation hasn't been released yet, so I mentioned we have over eighty planned solicitations this year, three of them has been released so far, so the bulk are still to be released. Typically, solicitations are open for about sixty days after we release them, and so you have about two months. So again, subscribe or follow us on social media so that you can get the alerts of when these are released.

“Is there funding specific to mental health courts?” Brooke, I'll turn that over to you.

BROOKE MOUNT: Thank you so much, Michelle. Yes, we do have a variety of funding available throughout various programs to support mental health courts. As we mentioned, the Adult Treatment Court, we discussed the Veterans Treatment Court, as well as JMHCP, depending upon, you know, whether you wanted to advance different diversion or deflection programs. So I highly recommend that you go through and obtain those solicitation overviews so you can see whether or not those programs meet your needs, and really narrow down how these programs can support you.

MICHELLE GARCIA: Thanks, Brooke. Several people asked about whether the materials will be made available after the webinar. The recording, transcript, and PowerPoint slides will be posted to the BJA website, and an email will go out to all registrants when those become available.
“Are schools—”

BROOKE MOUNT: Um, I—oh.

MICHELLE GARCIA: Go ahead, Brooke. Nope, go ahead.

BROOKE MOUNT: I'm sorry, Michelle. I received a couple of questions pertaining to the Connect and Protect as well as JMHCP match, so I just wanted to touch on that. Someone asked, "Is there a match for Connect and Protect and JMHCP?" Yes, both of those funding opportunities do require an escalating percentage match—cash or in-kind match. And a match means that a portion of project costs are not paid for by federal funds or contributions. For years one and two of those programs, there's a twenty percent match that's required, and then for year three, there's a forty percent match that is required.

MICHELLE GARCIA: Thanks, Brooke.

There was a question, "Are school districts eligible for this sort of funding?" And again, it depends on the program. So, as the solicitations are released, one of the first things it'll detail is who is actually eligible to apply. But one thing I'll note is, we also encourage partnerships. And so, if your organization or entity is not eligible to apply as a primary applicant, there still may be an opportunity for you to partner with an organization or agency that is, to try and get your needs addressed.

And I, again, want to note that some of these questions are very specific that since the 2024 solicitations haven't been released yet, we may not be able to answer specifically, but again, look at the prior-year solicitations and you can get a sense of what has been allowable or what the requirements have been in the past.

BROOKE MOUNT: Absolutely. And I also just want to reiterate that a lot, or most of these programs, will be having their own individual application webinars available while we are undergoing the application process, where you'll have an opportunity to attend and ask more specific questions related to these programs. So, I highly encourage you to obtain—or attend those as well.

MICHELLE GARCIA: There was a question about whether the community-based organization webinar is fully booked. I believe you're still able to register for that. Daryl, if that is still possible, could you please put the registration link in the chat?

BROOKE MOUNT: I am seeing a question pertaining to a mental health provider team being teamed up with police officers, and whether or not there are specific grants suggested. And I would highly encourage you to go on and take a look at Connect and Protect, as that is exactly the type of collaboration that Connect and Protect is designed for. And that grant opportunity is currently available and active, so you may be very interested in applying for that program.

MICHELLE GARCIA: There was a question about the link for the DOJ program plan, so the site that I mentioned where you can go and get information about all of the planned awards, and we will put that in the chat again.

There’s a question about, "How long do you have to have your organization before you can receive funding?" There's—to my knowledge, there's not specific requirements in any of our solicitations that require an organization to be in existence for, you know, a year, two years, ten years, or anything like that. What I would say is, if you are a relatively new organization, to spend a little bit of time looking at the solicitations, the awardee resources that I mentioned, to see what is required of grantees, to see if your organization is prepared at this point to be able to apply for and effectively manage federal dollars—there are quite a few requirements when it comes to managing federal dollars. And I encourage you to attend that webinar that we're holding specifically on the federal funding process, what you should know, what you should consider.

I will say this also: Many of our solicitations we repeat from year to year, sometimes with some changes, often not with significant changes. And so, if we release a solicitation this year and it's something that you're interested in but your organization may not yet be poised to be able to apply for it, use it to guide your planning over the next 12 months so that you can be prepared to apply next year when we release that solicitation again or perhaps something similar. It can really give you a roadmap for putting into place the types of systems and structures that will help you be successful in applying for a federal award.

“Are all the BJA upcoming webinars open for registration now?” Not yet, but they will be shortly. So please check back to that website throughout the week and they will be added as the registration information becomes available.

“Are prior year webinars on the YouTube channel applicable for using as a resource similar to previous solicitations?” Yes, I would say, please use those as a resource. Again, the caveat is, there might be some changes from the solicitation from year to year, but they can be a really great resource in getting a general understanding of the program, the types of activities that are allowable, and some of the things to consider as you're thinking about applying.

One other is noted, "When identifying eligibility to apply, does this include private, nonprofit medical centers, institutions of higher education with existing partnerships with local government or local mental health authority?" Again, it depends on the solicitation itself. It'll—as the solicitations are released, it will identify what is included in that other category. Again though, even if your particular agency or organization is not listed as a primary eligible applicant, there may still be an opportunity there where you could partner with an eligible applicant and be a sub-awardee on that grant.

I see a question about your initiative: “Would like to implement yoga or a Reiki program for gun violence survivors with PTSD. Where do you recommend we look into funding for that particular strategy?" What I will do is recommend you to look at funding under our Office for Victims of Crime. I cannot say specifically whether they have funding for those types of activities, but the Office for Victims of Crime or OVC is the office within the Office of Justice Programs that specifically provides funding for survivors of crime and violence.

BROOKE MOUNT: I was going to add, in addition to that, there may be some opportunities within the Veterans Treatment Courts funding as well.

MICHELLE GARCIA: That's great, Brooke.

There's a question about, "When is the first wave of funding to be released?" So, I'll answer that in two ways. As I said, the solicitations are starting to come out now. The funding awards typically start on October 1st—so the federal fiscal year is October 1 through September 30th. So, most of our awards that we're releasing this year will have an October 1st, 2024, start date. And those award notifications typically start happening in August/September.

All right, Brooke, did you see any questions that we didn't get to?

BROOKE MOUNT: Michelle, did you get to the gift card question? Our gift card is being phased out for grant opportunities.

MICHELLE GARCIA: So, gift cards generally are not allowable under a federal—under OJP funding guidelines. There may be a very rare exception, but I would say in general, they are not allowable—they're not allowable use of funds.

“To issue a subaward, must you have a subrecipient monitoring policy in place?” It is strongly recommended; it may be required. That is one that I will have to double-check on. But I know that when we go out and monitor our primary grantees, we are looking to see what policies in place they have around monitoring their subawards. And this is also an area of training and technical assistance that we can provide to grantees through NTTAC to help support organizations in developing those policies around subrecipient monitoring.

BROOKE MOUNT: And Michelle, I'm seeing one final question inquiring whether or not we have any recommendations or resources where we can direct someone who's interested in grant opportunities or donations for short-term residential therapeutic programs.

MICHELLE GARCIA: So I—my initial thought is, depending on who the intended population is. So, for instance, we support that type of programming for reentry, so those types of services for individuals who are returning from incarceration from jail or prison. If it's a different particular audience, we could look and see what other resources we might have available either within BJA or throughout OJP. So, both mine and Brooke's contact information we provided at the beginning, I can go back to that slide to put it up there. Please don't hesitate to reach out to either of us directly with any follow-up questions.

Seeing no additional questions…

We'd like to thank you all for spending the hour with us today. We hope that this information was helpful to you and that you visit our website frequently to get updates on our funding solicitations as they're released. And we wish you the best of luck in your applications. Thank you all so much and have a great rest of your day.

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.