The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) administers the Tribal Youth Program (TYP), which supports tribal efforts to prevent and control delinquency and improve tribal juvenile justice systems for American Indian/Alaska Native youth. TYP is part of the Indian Country Law Enforcement Initiative, a joint initiative of the U.S. Departments of Justice and Interior to improve law enforcement and juvenile justice in Indian Country.

TYP provides resources to federally recognized tribes and Alaska Native villages. The funding distribution is based on service population on or near reservations. Since 1999, 10 percent of the TYP appropriation has been used for research and evaluation activities and 2 percent has been used for training and technical assistance.

Since FY 1999, OJJDP has awarded 321 grants to 299 federally-recognized tribes to help them develop and implement culturally sensitive programs in the five following categories: prevention services to impact risk factors for delinquency, interventions for court-involved tribal youth, improvements to the tribal juvenile justice system, alcohol and drug abuse prevention programs, and mental health program services

In FY 2008, eighteen awards of $300,000 - $500,000 were made to federally-recognized tribes. The TYP solicitation provides a 5-year grant period which includes a planning year. OJJDP provides extensive training to TYP grant recipients in completing their comprehensive strategic plans, including training that focuses on successful community planning through an intensive, one on one approach. Tribes were encouraged to partner with faith-based and community organizations through subgrant opportunities.

In FY 2008, OJJDP provided $2 million in funding for mentoring programs to at-risk Native American youth. In addition, $2 million was provided to Big Brothers Big Sisters for mentoring programs in Indian Country.

Training and Technical Assistance

In FY 2008, OJJDP awarded a continuation cooperative agreement to Education Development Center, Inc., to fund a Tribal Youth Training and Technical Assistance (T/TA) Center for the provision of culturally sensitive T/TA to all federally-recognized tribes in Indian Country and for Tribal Youth Program grantees. The technical assistance provided includes: access to professional staff with expertise in developing cultural based approaches to prevention and intervention, capacity building, strategic planning; program implementation; program evaluation; and program sustainability.

Resources:

To request training or technical assistance, visit the OJJDP Tribal Youth Training and Technical Assistance Center or contact Stephanie Autumn, at sautumn@edc.org or 651-291-2972.

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