OVC: 2023 Improving Outcomes for Child and Youth Victims of Human Trafficking

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Justice Programs (OJP), Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) 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.

Donor Name: Office for Victims of Crime (OVC)

State: All States

County: All Counties

Type of Grant: Grant

Deadline: 04/06/2023

Size of the Grant: $1,500,000.00

Grant Duration: 36 months

Details:

To enhance capacity to identify, assist, and provide services to all victims of human trafficking, OVC leads the Nation in supporting victim centered and trauma-informed programs, policies, and resources that promote justice, access, and empowerment.

With this solicitation, OVC seeks to improve outcomes for children and youth who are victims of human trafficking by integrating human trafficking policy and programming at the state or Tribal level and encouraging coordinated, multidisciplinary, and statewide approaches to serving trafficked youth. OVC seeks to fund up to four state or Tribal jurisdictions to identify the state or Tribe’s greatest barriers to identifying and assisting child and youth victims of sex and labor trafficking and/or investigating and prosecuting these cases, and to develop a statewide or Tribal jurisdiction-wide strategy to address these challenges.

Goals

The goal of the program is to improve responses for child and youth victims of trafficking with a focus on collaboration at the statewide or Tribal jurisdiction level to create effective change across systems. Recognizing that each jurisdiction is unique, applicants should identify the state or Tribe’s greatest barriers to identifying and assisting child and youth victims of sex and labor trafficking and/or investigating and prosecuting these trafficking cases, and propose a program to systematically address those barriers.

Objectives

All objectives should include how the project will respond to both sex and labor trafficking. This includes the following:

Develop and implement a state or Tribal jurisdiction-wide strategy to combat the greatest challenges in addressing child and youth sex and labor trafficking within the state or Tribe.
Develop protocols and procedures 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, and strengthening data collection across multiple systems that work with and provide services to youth.
Develop a unified strategy to provide training to professionals throughout the jurisdiction, including, but not limited to, law enforcement officers, first responders such as hospital workers or paramedics, victim service providers, mental health care professionals, educators, child welfare or social workers, juvenile justice personnel, prosecutors, and other court personnel.
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 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