NIJ Journal Issue Focuses on Youth Justice and Child Protection

The October 2021 issue of the National Institute of Justice’s NIJ Journal highlights projects funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) that advance youth justice and child protection programming.  Of particular interest to NACBH in last October’s edition is a review of the effectiveness of mentoring programs in preventing youth delinquency.

OJJDP is the largest federal funder of mentoring programs and awarded nearly $1 billion in grans to mentoring organizations from FY 2008 to FY 2019.  Between FY 2017 and the first half of FY 2019, OJJDP-funded programs recruited 95,000 new mentors and served more than 600,000 youth nationwide.  This article reviews the research on mentoring programs to date, notes key challenges and remaining questions, and highlights promising directions for addressing limitations in the current evidence base.

NACBH members are encouraged to read the article as you continue to develop community-based programs serving youth in multiple systems.  Please log into the NACBH Members Only page and search “OJJDP” for previous NACBH News reports of grant funding opportunities and information.