DOJ/OVC: 2024 Improving Outcomes for Child and Youth Victims of Human Trafficking

This program aims to improve statewide coordination and multidisciplinary collaboration across systems to address human trafficking involving children and youth.

Donor Name: Office for Victims of Crime (OVC)

State: All States

County: All Counties

Type of Grant: Grant

Deadline: 04/08/2024

Size of the Grant: More than $1 million

Grant Duration: 3 Years

Details:

With this solicitation, the Office for Victims of Crime seeks applications for funding from states or Tribes to develop, enhance, and coordinate programs and activities geared toward improving outcomes for child and youth victims of sex and labor trafficking. This program furthers the Department’s mission by enhancing the field’s response to child and youth victims of human trafficking.

The goal of this program is to improve responses to and outcomes for child and youth victims of sex and labor trafficking through increased collaboration at the statewide or Tribal jurisdiction level and to create effective change across systems. Recognizing that each jurisdiction is unique, this program allows applicants to identify the state or Tribe’s greatest barriers to identifying and assisting child and youth victims of sex and labor trafficking and/or greatest barriers investigating and prosecuting sex and labor trafficking cases, and then to propose a program to systematically address those barriers. While each state or Tribe may approach the issue of human trafficking somewhat differently, and may choose to engage unique partners, all applications should address the needs of both sex and labor trafficking for child and youth victims in the jurisdiction.

Objectives

All program objectives address the response to both child and youth victims of sex and labor trafficking and include the following:

Develop and implement a state or Tribal jurisdiction-wide strategy to tackle the greatest challenges in addressing child and youth sex and labor trafficking within the state or Tribe.
Develop protocols and procedures, within and across systems, to make sure child and youth victims receive appropriate services, including developmentally and age appropriate and culturally specific referrals and/or services in their own language or with access to interpretation and translation.
Strengthen data collection and information sharing, following required confidentiality laws and protocols across multiple systems that work with and provide services to youth to improve responses to and outcomes for child and youth victims of trafficking.
Develop a unified strategy to provide training to professionals throughout the jurisdiction including, but not limited to, victim service providers, law enforcement officers, first responders such as hospital workers or paramedics, mental health care professionals, educators, child welfare or social workers, juvenile justice personnel, prosecutors, and other court personnel.
Identify and fill gaps in services and coordinate responses in existing anti-trafficking and youth-serving efforts, including those related to victim assistance, law enforcement, child welfare, runaway and homeless youth, and juvenile justice, among others. Using online directories available from OVC and the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP), applicants should determine if there is an existing federally funded trafficking victim service provider within their jurisdiction, and work to make sure that an application under this program does not duplicate existing services currently funded by OVC or OTIP.
Collect data and engage in performance measurement activities to determine if the program is meeting its stated goals and objectives (e.g., if there has been improved collaboration among systems).

Funding Information

Anticipated Total Amount To Be Awarded Under This Solicitation: $6 million.
OVC expects to make up to four awards of up to $1.5 million each for a 36-month period of performance to begin on October 1, 2024.

Eligibility Criteria