The louisville office for safe and healthy neighborhoods secondary gang prevention program will hire a project specialist to serve as the backbone coordinator of the citys collective impact approach…

The U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) awarded a $250,000 Project Grant under the Delinquency Prevention Program (CFDA 16.548) to the Louisville-Jefferson County Metro Government. The grant will fund the Louisville Office for Safe and Healthy Neighborhoods Secondary Gang Prevention Program, which will hire a Project Specialist to coordinate a collective impact approach to reduce the number of youth recruited into gang membership within the city. The program will receive referrals from partner agencies to serve 200 high-risk youth aged 13-17 residing in the city's most violent areas. Services will include individualized case planning, cognitive behavioral interventions, life skills training, and family-based counseling, with a focus on evidence-based models like Functional Family Therapy-Gang and Multisystemic Therapy. This three-year grant aims to provide comprehensive prevention and intervention services to address individual and familial risk factors and divert youth from gang involvement.

The louisville office for safe and healthy neighborhoods secondary gang prevention program will hire a project specialist to serve as the backbone coordinator of the citys collective impact approach to reduce the number of youths recruited for membership by gangs within the city. Clients will be referred to the program from a variety of partner agencies to include jefferson county public schools, louisville police department, the pivot to peace community violence intervention initiative, juvenile court, the louisville youth network, and a multitude of community-based organizations. An assessment tool will be created to identify appropriate clients during the intake process to ensure the project is serving the highest risk youth for gang involvement. Eligible candidates are youth between the ages of 13-17. A priority will be placed on those youth residing within the citys twenty most violence blocks as identified by lmpd crime data. A multidisciplinary team will review each case and collectively, with input from the youth and family, create short- and long-term case plans for successful intervention. While multiple risk factors will be addressed, emphasis will be placed upon individual and family risk factors. Case plans will include cognitive behavioral interventions, life skills training and family-based counseling, with an emphasis on functional family therapy- gang (FFT-G) and multisystemic therapy (MST). IT is anticipated that two hundred youth will be served during the project period.