Solicitation for a Cooperative Agreement: Developing a Method for Conducting an Internal Evaluation of Gender-Informed Policy and Practice, 43726-43729 [2011-18409]

Agencies

• Department of Justice
• National Institute of Corrections

[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 140 (Thursday, July 21, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 43726-43729]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-18409]


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DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

National Institute of Corrections


Solicitation for a Cooperative Agreement: Developing a Method for 
Conducting an Internal Evaluation of Gender-Informed Policy and 
Practice

AGENCY: National Institute of Corrections, U.S. Department of Justice.

ACTION: Solicitation for a Cooperative Agreement.

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SUMMARY: The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is seeking 
applications from organizations, groups, or individuals to enter into a 
cooperative agreement for an 18-month period to develop and pilot a 
methodology for correctional organizations to conduct an internal 
evaluation of their current policy and practice for working with women 
offenders. This methodology must cover a broad range of domains, such 
as leadership, external collaboration, management and operations, 
sanctions, assessment and case planning, and programs and services. The 
methodology must be concise but informative enough to be used by an 
organization with an understanding of evidence-based practices that 
incorporate gender-informed research and information. Additional 
consideration may be given to an applicant who can incorporate into the 
methodology those elements applicable to institutional and community 
corrections environments. The methodology should also include 
supplemental information that addresses an organization's readiness for 
change and a template that will help organizations initiate an internal 
strategic planning process. This award will also cover the piloting of 
the methodology, which should include both onsite work and use of Web-
based technology, post-pilot revisions to the methodology based on 
feedback, and a design for conducting a process evaluation to measure 
the efficacy of the methodology.
    The goal of this solicitation is to create and provide a 
methodology for organizations to (1) Conduct an abbreviated internal 
evaluation of their policies and practices specific to women and (2) 
begin to plan strategically to initiate the type of change required 
within their agency to reach their desired objectives. Information 
gathered by organizations using this methodology could also form the 
basis for resource requests from funding entities, formulation of 
technical assistance requests to external sources, and a vehicle to 
advance internal quality assurance. The awardee will work closely with 
designated NIC staff on all aspects of the project to ensure 
understanding of and agreement on the scope of work to be performed, 
and to work with other identified experts as well who are recognized 
for their expertise and practical experience in working with justice-
involved women.
    To be considered, applicants must demonstrate, at a minimum: In-
depth knowledge of research and practice regarding gender-informed 
(women) and evidence-based practices, organizational readiness, 
strategic planning, and process evaluation; In-depth knowledge of the 
practices, programs, and complexities specific to the operation of 
women's correctional facilities and awareness of the issues relevant to 
women on community release and under supervision; In-depth knowledge 
about the risks, needs, strengths, and capacity for resiliency with 
justice-involved women; Specific examples of expertise in directing 
project design and implementation; Demonstrated ability to work 
collaboratively with other experts in the field of gender-informed 
practices; Ability and capacity to conduct Web-based events.

DATES: Applications must be received by 4 p.m., EDT, August 24, 2011.

ADDRESSES: Mailed applications must be sent to: Director, National 
Institute of Corrections, 320 First St., NW., Room 215, Washington, DC 
20534.
    Applicants are encouraged to use Federal Express, UPS, or similar 
service to ensure delivery by the due date.
    Hand delivered applications should be brought to 500 First St., 
NW., Washington, DC 20534. At the front security desk, dial 7-3106, 
ext. 0 for pickup. Faxed or e-mailed applications will not be accepted. 
Electronic applications can only be submitted via https://www.grants.gov.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: A copy of this announcement and links 
to the required application forms can be downloaded from the NIC Web 
site at https://www.nicic.gov.
    All technical or programmatic questions concerning this 
announcement should be directed to Maureen Buell, Correctional Program 
Specialist, National Institute of Corrections, Administrative Division. 
Ms. Buell can be reached directly at 1-800-995-6423 ext. 40121 or by e-
mail at mbuell@bop.gov. In addition to the direct reply, all questions 
and response will be posted on NIC's Web site at https://www.nicic.gov 
for public review (the names of those submitting questions will not be 
posted). The Web site will be updated regularly and postings will 
remain on the Web site until the closing date of this cooperative 
agreement solicitation. Only questions received by 12 p.m. (EDT) on 
August 19, 2011 will be answered.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    Overview: The goal of the solicitation is to provide organizational 
leaders and managers across the corrections continuum (jails, prisons, 
community corrections) with a method to (1) Begin to internally 
evaluate the existence of internal policy and practice and their 
applicability to justice-involved women by using evidence-based 
practices and gender-informed research and knowledge as a foundation, 
(2) identify gaps and strengths in current services, and (3) provide 
sufficient guidance for an organization to begin to strategize desired 
internal change. NIC has incorporated much of the evidence-based, 
gender-informed research and knowledge into a variety of products that 
can be accessed on the NIC Web site at https://www.nicic.gov and on 
NIC's women offender Web page at https://www.nicic.gov/womenoffenders.
    Background: NIC has provided a broad range of services to 
organizations that wanted to develop, enhance, and/or revise their 
policies and practices to better manage their increasing population of 
justice-involved women. Systems are often overwhelmed with the 
increasing numbers of women, surpassing the rate at which men have been 
entering the system. From 1995 to 2005, the total number of female 
prisoners increased 57% compared to a 34% increase in male prisoners 
(Harrison & Beck (2006) Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2005 (NCJ 
Publication No. 213133). The increasing female population has presented

[[Page 43727]]

numerous challenges to the current corrections paradigm, including 
overuse of higher security beds driven by classification systems not 
validated for women; a lack of appropriate and effective resources 
targeting women's assessed risks and needs; and the low rates of 
success experienced by this population, evidenced by the high rate of 
returns due to technical violations rather than new convictions. Women 
offenders experience all of this despite the fact that, except for a 
small percentage, justice-involved women present lower rates of both 
institutional and community safety risk. Some current correctional 
practices also have had the unintended consequence of ``driving women 
deeper into the system.''
    In an attempt to deal with these challenges, organizations often 
will make piecemeal change (offer a parenting program or have female 
facilitators lead established programs), which has limited positive 
impact with women on items that are measured (e.g., recidivism data, 
program participation, numbers and types of disciplinary reports). 
However, as more organizations become familiar with the emerging 
research, they are interested in making broader, long lasting change 
but often do not know where to start. To try to understand the problem 
more thoroughly, NIC took a current and retrospective look at the 
nature of technical assistance requests specific to justice-involved 
women and noted a consistent theme. Although the details of the 
requests varied, they all, in some way, were requesting assistance to 
improve management of their women's population. The following are 
examples of common technical assistance requests: (a) Mission has 
changed. (b) The men have moved to another facility and women are being 
transferred to a facility that was designed for and has historically 
housed only male offenders. (c) A jurisdiction is building a new 
facility for women and would like it to be the best in the country, 
incorporating the gender-informed research. (d) Staff receive one hour 
of training in the academy specific to working with women. They want to 
design an effective training program that they can use in-house for 
their staff that is specific to their needs and population. (e) Women 
are surpassing men with their rates of technical violations resulting 
in revocations and returns to prison. They want NIC to assess their 
policies and procedures for women and determine whether they are 
effective. (f) There are few options for housing. Women at various 
custody levels are housed together. Although the jurisdiction hasn't 
had any major assaultive events, they need assistance in managing the 
population given their current environment. (g) Women are emerging from 
incarcerative settings with few resources but significant 
responsibilities. Many of them are caring for children with substandard 
housing, no job prospects or visible source of income; parole or court-
ordered conditions of supervision with no transportation; and really 
little more than what is on their backs. How can a jurisdiction work 
successfully with the challenges reentering women present? (h) Current 
classifications systems are not accurately reflecting risk and need for 
women. The facility ends up overriding the instruments. They need 
assistance in reviewing their current assessment and classifications 
tools for women and want recommendations for improvement. (i) The 
jurisdiction is overwhelmed with the needs of its mental health 
population. They know they need to include trauma-informed practices to 
both benefit the women offenders and their staff who interact with them 
daily.
    This is but a small sampling of requests over the years, but it was 
the impetus for collecting and organizing the emerging research and 
knowledge on women offenders.
    Fortunately, as the rate of women entering our nation's justice 
systems was dramatically increasing, also emerging was a body of work 
that has had significant impact on the field of corrections. Evidence-
based practices or risk reduction research, considered to be gender-
neutral, and the gender-informed research that has identified and 
articulated specific areas that are unique to and/or occur with 
increased frequency with women. The latter body of work has provided 
opportunities to sharpen our knowledge and practices regarding areas 
that contribute to risk for women. NIC has paid considerable attention 
to these emerging bodies of work and has collected and organized this 
information into a set of domains that impact a wide range of practices 
in women's facilities and in community corrections environments. This 
information is continuously incorporated into NIC's current and 
emerging products and services and has informed technical assistance to 
the field.
    The development of an internal evaluation methodology that contains 
the items drawn from both the evidence-based and gender-informed bodies 
of research and is in a concise and accessible format provides an 
opportunity for agency leadership and management to assess policy and 
practices that can contribute to or detract from an organization's 
overall effectiveness in managing justice-involved women. It is also a 
tool that can prepare an organization for requesting technical 
assistance, additional funding, or enhancing internal quality 
assurance.
    Purpose: This methodology will be concise and informative, 
incorporating evidence-based and gender-informed items to be used by an 
organization to reasonably conduct an internal evaluation of their 
policy and practice specific to their population of justice-involved 
women. Ideally this methodology will inform policy and practice in the 
operation of a women's facility and in effectively supervising women in 
a community corrections environment.
    Scope of Work: It will include an overview of the methodology, 
sources of items chosen for inclusion, description of the format, 
description of how an organization should apply the methodology, 
including the tasks of the internal team, a description of the piloting 
process, and instructions on how an organization will rate or 
prioritize the items as they are evaluated internally. Also included in 
the methodology is guidance to correctional organizations on assessing 
organizational readiness and strategic planning for the purposes of 
advancing the work with their population of justice-involved women 
based on the findings of their internal evaluation. Finally, the 
applicant must describe a process for how a pilot site or sites will be 
chosen. As stated, the final product will reflect revisions made to the 
methodology after a pilot(s) has been completed and will include a plan 
for process evaluation. The awardee must submit a detailed work plan 
with timelines and milestones for accomplishing project activities to 
the assigned NIC correctional program specialist (CPS) for approval 
prior to any work being performed under this agreement and must 
designate a point of contact that will serve as the conduit of 
information between the CPS and the awardee.
    Examples of issues for applicants to consider for this project 
include creation of methodology that is concise and easy to understand 
yet provides enough detail to ensure that a wide range of practices are 
evaluated relative to the research and knowledge on justice-involved 
women. The intent of this solicitation is to assist agencies in 
accurately evaluating internal practices for working with women, with 
improved management and outcomes as

[[Page 43728]]

an objective. This type of evaluation runs the risk of resulting in a 
``halo effect.'' That is, agencies are at risk of undermining 
objectivity when an internal team looks at their own internal 
practices. In order for an agency to conduct an internal evaluation of 
their practices, initial work must be completed, including accessing 
relevant data, knowledge of current policy and practice, and a general 
vision of what the agency would like to achieve. Internal evaluators 
may have limited knowledge about evidence-based and gender-informed 
practice for women offenders, may not believe there should be 
differences in policy and practice between male and female populations 
or could misinterpret the intent of items in the methodology. The 
applicant must consider the challenges identified above and propose 
strategies for successfully addressing those areas within the context 
of this project. Applicants are encouraged to identify and address 
additional issues and challenges that they believe will impact the 
successful development of this project.
    Document Length: The length of the document should be determined by 
content--brevity and clarity are encouraged.
    Intended Audience: The primary audience for this product is the 
leadership and management of correctional organizations. The document 
will also be useful for management of correctional institutions for 
women and community corrections organizations in the supervision of 
women.
    Distribution: This product is intended to be distributed widely and 
made available to the corrections field. It will be available on the 
NIC Web site and available free of charge through the NIC Information 
Center.
    Final Product: The completed materials will have received editing 
from a professional editor. Ideally, materials will be electronically 
based. The awardee must follow the Guidelines for Preparing and 
Submitting Manuscripts for Publication as found in the ``General 
Guidelines for Cooperative Agreements,'' which will be included in the 
award package. The awardee will deliver the final product to NIC in 
hard copy and on disk in Word format. NIC will be responsible for the 
final editing process and document design, but the awardee will remain 
available during this time to answer questions and to make revisions to 
the document. The awardee must also ensure that all products meet NIC's 
standards for accessibility and Section 508 compliance.
    Meetings: The cooperative agreement awardee will attend an initial 
meeting with NIC staff for a project overview and preliminary planning. 
This will take place shortly after the cooperative agreement is awarded 
and will be held in located to be mutually determined. Washington, DC. 
Additionally, the awardee should plan to meet with NIC staff routinely 
as agreed upon by NIC and the awardee during the course of the 
cooperative agreement. Meetings will be held no less than quarterly and 
may be conducted via webinar or in person as agreed upon by NIC and the 
awardee.
    Application Requirements: An application package must include OMB 
Standard Form 424, Application for Federal Assistance; a cover letter 
that identifies the audit agency responsible for the applicant's 
financial accounts as well as the audit period or fiscal year under 
which the applicant operates (e.g. July 1 through June 30); an outline 
of projected costs with the budget and strategy narratives described in 
the announcement. The following additional forms must also be included: 
OMB Standard Form 424A, Budget Information--Non-Construction Programs; 
OMB Standard Form 424B, Assurances--Non-Construction Programs (both 
available at https://www.grants.gov); DOJ/FBOP/NIC Certification 
Regarding Lobbying, Debarment, Suspension and Other Responsibility 
Matters; and the Drug-Free Workplace Requirements (available at https://www.nicic.gov/Downloads/PDF/certif-frm.pdf).
    Applications should be concisely written, typed double spaced, and 
reference the NIC opportunity number and title referenced in this 
announcement. If you are hand delivering or submitting via Fed-Ex, 
please include an original and three copies of your full proposal 
(program and budget narrative, application forms, assurances, and other 
descriptions). The original should have the applicant's signature in 
blue ink. Electronic submissions will be accepted only via https://www.grants.gov.
    The project summary/abstract portion of the application should be 
brief and include: A summary of the application's project description. 
The summary must be clear, accurate, and concise without reference to 
other parts of the application; A brief description of the critical 
elements of the proposed project, including the goals and objectives 
for the project and how strategies proposed meet those goals and 
objectives.
    Please place the following at the top of the abstract: Project 
title, applicant name (legal name of applicant organization), mailing 
address, e-mail address, Web site address and contact phone numbers, 
including voice and fax, where applicable.
    The narrative portion of the application should include at a 
minimum: A statement indicating the applicant's understanding of the 
project's purpose, goals and objectives. The applicant should state 
this in language other than that used in the solicitation (i.e., do not 
simply repeat the wording from the solicitation); Project design and 
implementation: This section should describe key design points, 
implementation issues, and opportunities; Project evaluation: This 
section will describe the design of the proposed process evaluation; 
Project Management: Charts of measurable milestones and timelines for 
the completion of each milestone; Capabilities and competencies: This 
section should describe the qualifications of the applicant 
organization and any partner organizations to do the work proposed and 
the expertise of key staff to be involved in the project. Attach 
resumes that document relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities to 
complete the project for the principals and staff members assigned to 
the project; Budget: The budget should detail all costs for the 
project, show consideration for all contingencies for the project, a 
commitment to work within the proposed amount, and demonstrate the 
ability to provide deliverables reasonably according to schedule.

    Authority: Public Law 93-415.

    Funds Available: NIC is seeking the applicant's best ideas 
regarding accomplishment of the scope of work and the related costs for 
achieving the goals of this solicitation. Funds may be used only for 
the activities that are linked to the desired outcome of the project. 
The funding amount should not exceed $120,000.
    Eligibility of Applicants: An eligible applicant is any state or 
general unit of government, private agency, educational institution, 
organization, individual, or team with expertise in the described 
areas. Applicants must have demonstrated ability to implement a project 
of this size and scope.
    Review Considerations: Applications will be reviewed by a team. 
Among the criteria used to evaluate the applications are indication of 
a clear understanding of the project requirements; background, 
experience, and expertise of the proposed project staff, including any 
sub-contractors; effectiveness of an innovative approach to the 
project;

[[Page 43729]]

clear, concise description of all elements and tasks of the project, 
with sufficient and realistic timeframes necessary to complete the 
tasks; technical soundness of project design and methodology; financial 
and administrative integrity of the proposal, including adherence to 
Federal financial guidelines and processes; a sufficiently detailed 
budget that shows consideration of all contingencies for this project 
and commitment to work with the budget proposed; and indication of 
availability work with NIC staff.
    Programmatic: 40 Points.
    Are all of the elements and tasks as outlined in the proposal fully 
and clearly addressed? Is there a clear description of how each project 
activity will be accomplished, including major tasks; the strategies to 
be employed; required staffing; responsible parties, and other required 
resources? Are there any unique or exceptional approaches, techniques, 
or design aspects proposed that will enhance the project?
    Project Management, Administration and Budget: 30 Points.
    Does the applicant identify reasonable objectives, milestones, or 
measures to track progress? Are the proposed management and staffing 
plans clear, realistic, and sufficient to carry out the project? Is the 
applicant willing to meet with NIC, at a minimum, as indicated in the 
solicitation for this cooperative agreement? Is the proposed budget 
realistic, does it provide sufficient cost detail/narrative, and does 
it represent good value relative to the anticipated results? Does the 
application include a chart that aligns the budget with project 
activities along a timeline with, at minimum, quarterly benchmarks? In 
terms of program value, is the estimated cost reasonable in relation to 
work performed and project products?
    Organizational and Project Staff Background: 30 Points.
    Do the skills, knowledge, and expertise of the organization and the 
proposed project staff demonstrate a high level of competency to carry 
out the tasks? Does the applicant/organization have the necessary 
experience and organizational capacity to carry out all goals of the 
project? If consultants and/or partnerships are proposed, is there a 
reasonable justification for their inclusion in the project and a clear 
structure to ensure effective coordination?

    Note:  NIC will NOT award a cooperative agreement to an 
applicant who does not have a Dun and Bradstreet Database Universal 
Number (DUNS) and is not registered in the Central Contractor 
Registry (CCR). Applicants can obtain a DUNS number at no cost by 
calling the dedicated toll-free request line at 800-333-0505. 
Applicants who are sole proprietors should dial 866-705-5711 and 
select option 1.

    Applicants may register in the CCR online at the CCR Web site: 
https://www.ccr.gov. Applicants can also review a CCR handbook and 
worksheet at this Web site.
    Number of Awards: One.
    NIC Opportunity Number: 11AD04.
    Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number: 16.601.
    Executive Order 12372: This project is not subject to the 
provisions of Executive Order 12372.

Morris L. Thigpen,
Director, National Institute of Corrections.
[FR Doc. 2011-18409 Filed 7-20-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4410-36-P