SMART FY 16 Promoting Evidence Integration in Sex Offender Management: Juvenile Treatment Progress Scale Development and Implementation | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

This SMART Office (U.S. Department of Justice, OJP) grant opportunity from FY 2016 focuses on building stronger, evidence-based tools for juvenile sex offender management by funding the development and validation of a dynamic treatment progress scale. The core idea is to give clinicians and other qualified professionals a practical, research-backed way to measure a youth's treatment needs over time and to document progress toward treatment goals and eventual completion. Unlike static risk markers that do not change (such as past history), the tool emphasized here is meant to capture dynamic, changeable factors that treatment can actually target, making it useful for real-world clinical decision-making and case planning.

The project has several clear objectives that applicants must address. First, the grantee must either develop a new assessment scale or select an existing scale already used in the field and then validate it for this purpose. Whichever route is chosen, the applicant is expected to justify why that tool is appropriate and how it fits the goals of measuring treatment needs and progress for juveniles who have committed sex offenses. Second, the scale must be integrated into a cognitive-behavioral treatment program, and providers at participating sites must be trained to use it correctly and consistently. Third, the project must go beyond creating the tool by evaluating how well it works in practice, including how it is implemented, what impact it has on treatment delivery and decision-making, and whether incorporating it improves outcomes or supports more reliable judgments about readiness for treatment completion. Finally, implementation and validation must occur in up to two sites, and the scale must be validated at each participating site.

Site selection requirements are a major component of the solicitation and are designed to support credible validation. The scale must be tested in as many as two sites that are geographically and demographically diverse, rather than limited to one narrow setting. Each site is expected to have a sufficiently large population for analysis, with a minimum pool of about 300 to 500 youth who can be included in the project. Applicants must show evidence that the sites have adequate case flow and an eligible juvenile population, and they also need to demonstrate that the sites have automated data systems capable of tracking the youth in the study. The application should describe these data systems and what they can do, since the evaluation depends on reliable tracking and data collection. Applicants are allowed to budget financial incentives to encourage sites to participate, but an important practical point is that the sites themselves will not receive additional SMART Office funding to implement the tool or to develop it, meaning the project must be designed with realistic site capacity and commitment in mind.

Documentation of site commitment is treated as a gatekeeping requirement. Applicants are encouraged to include a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or Letter of Intent from each site with the application, and SMART requires this documentation before funds can be accessed. A special award condition specifies that the grantee cannot obligate, spend, or draw down project funds until SMART has received the required MOU or Letter of Intent from the participating sites, which effectively makes formal site buy-in a prerequisite to launching the work.

The grantee's responsibilities cover both technical development and applied implementation. The selected awardee must collaborate closely with the sites to embed the assessment scale into the cognitive-behavioral treatment framework and deliver training so providers understand how to administer the tool, interpret results, and use it in treatment planning. The grantee must also track and document the rollout and day-to-day use of the tool, verify that each site has the necessary data infrastructure, and provide training or support on data collection and data quality where needed. In addition, the grantee must conduct an evaluation that looks at implementation quality and consistency, the tool's impact on practice, and the overall efficacy of integrating the scale into treatment. The project also carries an expectation of reporting and dissemination of both interim and final findings so that the field can learn from the work.

Deliverables are specific and substantial. By the end of the project period, the grantee must submit a final report and executive summary that explain how the scale was developed or modified and validated, how it was implemented within treatment, and what the evaluation found regarding implementation, impact, and efficacy. The final reporting package must highlight significant findings, identify policy implications and lessons learned, and provide a general description of methods and activities. The grantee must also deliver the assessment scale itself (whether newly developed or an existing tool validated through the project) along with all relevant supporting materials. If the tool already exists or is in use at the time of application, applicants are encouraged to include a copy with the proposal to strengthen clarity about what will be tested and implemented.

Ongoing project management and accountability expectations are also spelled out. The award includes routine coordination with SMART, including monthly conference calls with the SMART program manager to review progress and address challenges. The grantee must submit bi-monthly progress reports describing current status and milestones, followed by a final progress report and a task activity summary at the end of the performance period documenting what was done to complete the project. Where applicable, the data sets produced through the research are expected to be submitted for archiving as a deliverable, supporting transparency and potential future research use.

Administratively, this is a discretionary cooperative agreement under CFDA 16.203, offered by USDOJ-OJP-SMART, with one expected award and a funding ceiling of $500,000. Eligible applicants include a wide range of entities such as public and private institutions of higher education, federally recognized tribal governments, nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) status, individuals, and for-profit organizations (other than small businesses), among others as specified in the solicitation. The closing date for applications was May 9, 2016, and the opportunity was posted March 24, 2016. Overall, the opportunity is designed to move the field toward more measurable, defensible, and clinically useful ways of tracking treatment progress for juveniles who have committed sex offenses, with a strong emphasis on real-world implementation, evaluation, and products that can be shared and replicated.

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