OJJDP FY 2022 Enhancing School Capacity To Address Youth Violence | O OJJDP 2022 171274

Opportunity Information: Apply for O OJJDP 2022 171274

The Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) offered this discretionary funding opportunity, titled "OJJDP FY 2022 Enhancing School Capacity To Address Youth Violence" (Funding Opportunity No. O-OJJDP-2022-171274), to help schools and community partners reduce youth violence through proven, evidence-based approaches delivered in K-12 school settings. The program sits within a broader DOJ and Office of Justice Programs (OJP) commitment to advancing civil rights and racial equity, improving access to justice, supporting victims and people impacted by the justice system, strengthening community safety, protecting the public from emerging threats, and building trust between law enforcement and communities. Rather than focusing on security hardware, the emphasis is on prevention, intervention, school climate, and targeted supports that address student and community needs.

At its core, the initiative is designed to achieve two connected goals. First, it aims to reduce the incidence of school violence by improving school safety and overall school climate, recognizing that a healthier climate can lower conflict, improve reporting and response, and reduce opportunities for harm. Second, it aims to prevent youth violence, delinquency, and victimization in the surrounding community, reflecting the idea that school-based interventions can influence behavior and safety beyond the school building, especially when services are coordinated with families and community-based organizations. The solicitation explicitly centers on targeted efforts, meaning applicants are expected to identify needs, risk factors, and gaps and then implement interventions that match those needs, rather than offering generic programming.

Funding was offered through cooperative agreements, which generally means awardees should expect a more active federal role than a standard grant, including ongoing collaboration, monitoring, and technical guidance. The award ceiling listed is $3,500,000, and OJJDP anticipated making about 22 awards. The opportunity opened on April 19, 2022, with an original closing date of June 6, 2022. The activity area is classified under Law, Justice, and Legal Services, and it is associated with CFDA number 16.839.

The solicitation is structured around two funding categories. Category 1, "Project Sites," supports eligible organizations that want to build or strengthen their capacity to address youth violence and victimization through school-based programming. In practice, this could include adopting or expanding evidence-based prevention curricula, implementing intervention models for students at higher risk, improving school-community referral pathways, strengthening victim support services in a school context, and using data to guide decisions about where and how to intervene. The expectation is that these efforts are responsive to identified student and community needs and that they are grounded in approaches with credible evidence behind them. Category 2, "Training and Technical Assistance," funds a provider to support the Category 1 sites, helping them with implementation quality, problem-solving, data collection and performance measurement, sustainability planning, and sharing lessons learned across sites so that effective practices can be replicated and strengthened.

A major constraint in this solicitation is tied to its funding source: the Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing School Violence Act of 2018 (the STOP School Violence Act). Because of that statutory authority, funds under this OJJDP solicitation cannot be used for target-hardening or physical security equipment intended to secure school facilities. The notice specifically names items like cameras, security systems, fencing, and locks as unallowable uses. It also clearly prohibits using these funds to pay for armed security officers or school resource officers. Applicants whose primary goal is physical security upgrades are directed instead to the COPS Office School Violence Prevention Program (SVPP), which is more aligned to that kind of investment.

Finally, the solicitation flags a coordination issue across DOJ components. In FY 2022, the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), OJJDP, and the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office all released solicitations supported by STOP School Violence Act funding. To avoid duplicative federal funding for essentially the same project, applicants are instructed not to submit duplicate applications with similar project designs to more than one of these DOJ solicitations. In other words, an organization should choose the solicitation that best fits its approach, especially given that this OJJDP opportunity is geared toward evidence-based prevention and intervention in K-12 schools rather than security infrastructure or staffing armed roles.

Eligible applicants are broad and include state, county, and city or township governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and private institutions of higher education; federally recognized tribal governments and other tribal organizations; nonprofit organizations with or without 501(c)(3) status (excluding higher education institutions in those categories); and for-profit organizations other than small businesses, along with certain other entities as clarified in the solicitation. This wide eligibility is meant to support partnerships among schools, local governments, community-based providers, and research or training organizations, as long as the proposed work remains school-based (K-12 only), evidence-informed, and aligned with the prevention-and-intervention focus of the program.

• The Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention in the law, justice and legal services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "OJJDP FY 2022 Enhancing School Capacity To Address Youth Violence" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 16.839.
• This funding opportunity was created on Apr 19, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Jun 06, 2022. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $3,500,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 22 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For profit organizations other than small businesses, Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

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