U.S. Department of Labor: Face Forward 2 – Intermediary and Community Grants

Face Forward 2 – Intermediary and Community grants will offer organizations the opportunity to develop programs that address the employment barriers of court-involved youth while helping these youth develop the employment skills needed to obtain good jobs. These grants will help participants move forward into the future by combining the most promising workforce and juvenile justice strategies available. These grants will systematically improve the workforce outcomes of court-involved youth who will obtain industry-recognized credentials that prepare them for jobs in demand industries using career pathways.

The core project components for these grants include: case management, mentoring, educational interventions, service-learning, occupational training in demand industries which lead to industry-recognized credentials, workforce activities that lead to employment, follow-up activities, and expungement and diversion. The expungement and diversion components will be provided through the juvenile justice system (JJS) and non-profit legal services organizations. Grantees or sub-grantees of intermediary organizations must collaborate with the local components of the JJS to ensure court-involved youth receive referrals into programs as a means of diverting the youth’s juvenile charge(s), and collaborate with non-profit legal services organizations to provide legal services that assist program participants with expungement.

Amount: Plans are to make four intermediary organization grants of $5 million each and approximately 16 community organization grants of up to $1.5 million each, totaling approximately $44 million.

Eligibility:

• Community Grant Applicants: Eligible applicants include any community or faith-based organization with 501(c)3 non-profit status (including women’s and minority organizations), unit of state or local government, or any Indian and Native American entity eligible for grants under WIA Section 166, that are located in areas with high-poverty and high-crime rates.
• Intermediary Grant Applicants: Eligible applicants include any community or faith-based organization with 501(c)3 non-profit status or any Indian and Native American entity eligible for grants under WIA Section 166. Intermediary applicants must ensure that their sub-grantees are located in areas with high-poverty and high-crime rates.

High-poverty and high-crime rates are defined as:

• High-poverty rate: communities with poverty rates of at least 30 percent (applicants must use American Community Survey (ACS) data to show the average poverty rate of the various Census Tracts included in their target community).
• High-crime rate: communities with felony crime rates within the targeted area that are higher than the felony crime rate in one or more adjoining communities (applicants must provide the strategy for determining the high-crime rate).

Services should be provided to court-involved youth between the ages of 14 to 24 that have been involved in the JJS and never convicted in the adult criminal system.

Link: http://www.doleta.gov/grants/find_grants.cfm

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