OpportunityTitle: National Center for Legal and Judicial Excellence in Child Welfare
AdditionalInformationOnEligibility: The Secretary may make grants to, and enter into contracts with entities that are States, Indian tribes or tribal organizations, or public agencies or private agencies or organizations (or combinations of such entities). Faith-based and community organizations that meet the eligibility requirements are eligible to receive awards under this funding opportunity announcement. Faith-based organizations are encouraged to review the ACF Policy on Grants to Faith-Based Organizations at: http: //www.acf.hhs.gov/acf-policy-on-grants-to-faith-based-organizations. Applications from individuals, foreign entities, and sole proprietorship for-profit organizations are not eligible and will be disqualified from competitive review and from funding under this announcement.
Description: This FOA has been modified. The maximum points in section V.1 Criteria, Approach have been changed to 40, the subsection Approach has been changed to a range from 0 - 20, and 5 points have been added to Organizational Capacity to bring the total maximum points to 100. This was necessary because of an error in calculating the maximum points originally. The deadline for applications was extended two days (from June 23, 2014 to June 25, 2014) due to the planned Grants.gov shut down. Because of this modification the due date is now June 30, 2014. The sentence regarding the new award term and condition titled: Award Term and Condition for Federal Recognition of Same-Sex Spouses/Marriage previously inserted in this Executive Summary under the modification published May 21, 2014 is being deleted. This new term and condition no longer appears in Section VI.2 Administrative and National Policy Requirements The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement is to establish, by cooperative agreement, a National Center for Legal and Judicial Excellence in Child Welfare (The Center). The Center will work collaboratively with other Children&#8217;s Bureau (CB) supported technical assistance providers to improve child welfare systems in achieving measurable, sustainable systemic change that results in greater safety, permanency, and well-being for children, youth, and families. The expected project period is 5 years. The Center will serve as the primary technical assistance provider of universal, targeted, and intensive T/TA to State and Tribal Court Improvement Programs. The Center is intended to successfully engage and support state and tribal courts in continuous quality improvement efforts to improve the efficacy of court functioning, the quality of legal representation for all parties, and assist CIPs in designing, implementing and testing innovations to build evidence of effective practices, interventions, and models. The Center will work to ensure State and Tribal CIP collaboration with state and tribal child welfare agencies and support work toward shared outcomes.
GrantorContactEmailDescription: ACF Applications Help Desk
GrantorContactText: ACF Applications Help Desk&lt;br/&gt;app_support@acf.hhs.gov&lt;br/&gt;
CloseDateExplanation: Electronically submitted applications must be submitted no later than 11:59 p.m., ET, on the listed application due date.