Breadcrumb
- Federal Resources
Federal Resources
You For Youth
This site helps youth professionals connect and share resources with colleagues, provide professional development and technical assistance opportunities, and offer tools for program improvement. The site provides information focused on afterschool programs.
Share with Youth: Advice to Young Adults from Young Adults: Helpful Hints for Policy Change in the Mental Health System
This resource (PDF, 8 pages) can guide youth- and young adult-led organizations that want to make policy changes in the mental health system. Developed bythe Research and Training Center for Pathways to Positive Futures and Portland State University, it contains recommendations and quotes from a series of interviews with young adult leaders from advocacy groups that focus on mental health challenges or living in foster care.
Resource: Understanding Neurobiology of Psychological Trauma: Tips for Working with Transition-Age Youth
This resource (PDF, 8 pages), developed by Pathways Research and Training Center, introduces service providers to scientifically-informed findings about brain development and trauma specific to young adults, and describes the implications for trauma-informed interventions and trauma-informed engagement of young people in services.
Share with Youth: Changing the Rules: A Guide for Youth and Young Adults with Mental Health Conditions Who Want to Change Policy
This policy guide, developed by Pathways RTC (Research and Training Center), is written for youth- and young adult-led groups and organizations that want to make changes in policies related to mental health and other human services that affect them and other transition-age youth. The guide is intended for use by youth and young adults working together within a group or organization to make specific change, usually in partnership with other agencies, groups, or organizations.
Bureau of Justice Assistance: Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force Initiative
The Bureau of Justice Assistance’s Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force Initiative includes training for law enforcement and communities to identify trafficking in persons and rescue victims by working with federal law enforcement and victims service providers and offering support and funding to task forces (in coordination with the Office for Victims of Crime and the Department of Health and Human Services) based on a sound strategy of collaboration among state and local enforcement, trafficking victim services providers, federal law enforcement, and U.S. Attorney Offices.
Bureau of Justice Assistance Training and Technical Assistance
This resource provides technical assistance to practitioners in state, local, and tribal justice systems.
Gang Resistance and Education Program
The G.R.E.A.T. Program is a school-based, law enforcement officer-instructed classroom curriculum. With prevention as its primary objective, the program is intended as an immunization against delinquency, youth violence, and gang membership.
National Reentry Resource Center
Funded by the Second Chance Act of 2008, and launched by the Council of State Governments Justice Center in 2009, the National Reentry Resource Center provides education, training, and technical assistance to states, tribes, territories, local governments, service providers, non-profit organizations, and corrections institutions working on prisoner reentry.
Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents: Trauma Prevention Policy
The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs (OJP), in partnership with the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) created a policy, Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents. The policy, which reflects input from subject-matter experts and stakeholders, provides strategies for law enforcement to improve their procedures for interactions with children when a parent is arrested.
Why Youth Join Gangs
OJJDP, BJA, and the National Gang Center developed “Why Youth Join Gangs,” an online video that features (a) gang researchers and practitioners providing their perspectives on gang joining and (b) youth sharing their gang experiences. The video highlights risk factors that may play a role in a youth’s decision to join a gang and behaviors that might be observed when interacting with youth at high risk of joining a gang.
Tribal Crime Data Collection Activities, 2015
This report describes BJS activities to collect and improve data on crime and justice in Indian country, as required by the Tribal Law and Order Act, 2010. The report summarizes BJS’s efforts in 2015 to:
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Field a survey on the capabilities and caseloads of tribal court systems
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Develop a survey of all state and local law enforcement agencies and prosecutors’ offices serving Indian country
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Study the handling of American Indian and Alaska Native juvenile and adult criminal cases in the federal justice system
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Enhance current funding programs to support tribal participation in regional and national criminal justice databases
The report also summarizes tribal eligibility for Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant awards from 2008 to 2015 and presents Uniform Crime Reporting Program statistics on offenses reported by tribal law enforcement agencies from 2008 to 2013.
Parents’ Guide to Gangs: Now Available in Spanish
NGC has published a Spanish version of the Parents' Guide to Gangs. This resource is designed to provide parents with answers to common questions about gangs and to help them recognize and prevent gang involvement.
Video: The Sobering Consequences of Underage Drinking
Supported by a grant from BJA, the Center for Public Safety Innovation and the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America released a video featuring a panel of experts discussing trends in underage drinking, consequences of underage drinking on adolescent health, and intervention and prevention strategies.
Video: Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents Training
This training video shows children telling their own stories about how they were affected by the arrest of a parent, and demonstrates the core principles from the Model Policy for Safeguarding Children of Arrested Parents (PDF, 38 pages), illustrating actions law enforcement officers can take to reduce trauma.
Resource: New BJA NTTAC Violent Crime Resource
This new website features violent crime training and technical assistance resources, including publications, national initiatives, trainings, technical assistance opportunities, and other materials identified by BJA’s National Training and Technical Assistance Center (NTTAC).
Resource: Tribal Access to Justice Innovation
This website helps tribal justice practitioners learn about emerging and promising justice-related programs in Indian Country. Visitors can learn what tribes are doing to address issues in their communities, access tribal program information, and collaborate and connect with tribal justice practitioners.
Resource: Drug Courts
This article (PDF, 2 pages) provides an overview of the varying types of drug courts. Criminal defendants and offenders, family members, criminal justice practitioners, and drug treatment professionals can use this information to understand the purpose and function of drug courts and to find related research and resources.
Resource: Redesigned National Gang Center Website
This redesigned website features new focus areas on criminal justice, communities and research, an inquiries section for quicker responses from staff, new forms to request technical assistance, the National Gang Center blog, and OJJDP Comprehensive Gang Model tools. Communities can utilize these resources in their gang prevention, intervention, and suppression efforts.
Resource: Mentoring as a Component of Reentry
This resource (PDF, 45 pages), developed by the National Reentry Resource Center, provides recommendations to help community-based organizations integrate adult mentoring into existing reentry programming. This resource can also help organizations build effective partnerships with correctional agencies, learn about promising practices in adult mentoring, such as peer mentoring, and increase effective data collection and evaluation through stronger collaboration between reentry programs and research partners.
Resource: Leveraging the Every Student Succeeds Act to Improve Educational Services in Juvenile Justice Facilities
This policy brief (PDF, 12 pages), developed by the American Youth Policy Forum, the National Reentry Resource Center, and the Council of State Governments Justice Center, provides information to state and local policymakers as well as education and juvenile justice leaders about how to use requirements under the Every Student Succeeds Act to improve education and workforce outcomes for youth in long-term juvenile justice facilities.
Report: Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2015
This report presents the most recent data on school crime and student safety. Topics covered include victimization at school, teacher injury, bullying and cyberbullying, school conditions, student perceptions of personal safety at school, and a special spotlight section on juveniles in residential placement facilities.
Report: Co-Offending Among Adolescents in Violence Victimizations, 2004-13
This report presents estimates of nonfatal violence victimizations committed by adolescents during 2004-13 and compares the characteristics of victimizations committed by adolescents acting alone and with other young people. The data show adolescent offenders committed 22% of all violent victimizations during this period, and more violent victimizations were committed by adolescents who acted alone than those who acted with co-offenders.
Report: Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2016
This annual report presents data on crime at school from the perspectives of students, teachers, principals, and the general population. Topics addressed include victimization, bullying, school conditions, fights, weapons, the presence of security staff at school, availability and student use of drugs and alcohol, student perceptions of personal safety at school, and criminal incidents at postsecondary institutions.
Education Resources Information Center
ERIC provides ready access to education literature to support the use of educational research and information to improve practice in learning, teaching, educational decision-making, and research.
Using MTSS to Support Student Well-being: Fact Sheets for Schools
Many schools and districts are turning to multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS)—a framework for implementing a cohesive set of evidence-based programs and practices—to promote students’ social, emotional, and mental health. This REL Northeast & Islands blog post highlights five fact sheet designed to support educators' use of MTSS. Topics cover:
- What are Multi-Tiered Systems of Supports?
- Meeting Social, Emotional, and Mental Health Needs with MTSS
- Data is Key to Taking an MTSS Approach
- Don't Forget about Educator Well-being
- MTSS Efforts Thrive When Equity is at the Core