Solicitation for a Cooperative Agreement: Curriculum Development for Women Offenders; Developing an Agency-Wide Approach, 46849-46852 [2011-19561]

Agencies

• Department of Justice
• National Institute of Corrections

[Federal Register Volume 76, Number 149 (Wednesday, August 3, 2011)]
[Notices]
[Pages 46849-46852]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2011-19561]


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DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

National Institute of Corrections


Solicitation for a Cooperative Agreement: Curriculum Development 
for Women Offenders; Developing an Agency-Wide Approach

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 for the development and 
piloting of a curriculum specific to working with justice involved 
women. NIC has developed and delivered a number of training programs 
specific to management of women offenders. Each such program targets 
varied audiences and objectives, all with the common goal of improving 
justice system and individual outcomes for women offenders in the 
criminal justice system. Since the original ``Women Offenders: 
Developing an Agency-Wide Approach'' was delivered, significant 
findings specific to women have emerged, increasing our understanding 
of the risk, needs, and strengths of this population. This solicitation 
is for the development of a blended-learning curriculum that can be 
used to guide correctional leadership teams representing jails, 
prisons, and/or community corrections in planning an agency-wide 
process for the effective management of justice involved women. The 
curriculum will incorporate research-based information and will reflect 
adult learning theory using blended learning and Web-based technology.

DATES: Applications must be received by 4 p.m., E.D.T., August, 22, 
2011.

ADDRESSES: Mailed applications must be sent to: Director, National 
Institute of Corrections, 320 First Street, NW., Room 5002, 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/cooperative agreements.
    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 responses 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. (E.D.T.) on 
August 17, 2011 will be answered.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    Overview: The curriculum ``Women Offenders: Developing an Agency 
Approach'' was originally developed in 2002 and since that time a 
number of program modules have been revised to reflect emerging 
information and practices. This curriculum has been offered to agency 
leaders with roles in developing and/or implementing policy within 
their organizations. The final product from this solicitation will 
reflect the emerging research and use a blended-learning format.
    Over the past decade there have been significant contributions to 
correctional practices with evidence-based research and knowledge. More 
recently, emerging research has identified areas that contribute to 
women's risk in institutional and/or community corrections settings. 
Some of these areas include housing safety, history of family conflict, 
victimization as a child and adult, dysfunctional relationships, and 
parental stress among other areas. Also factored in are areas of 
strength and resiliency which, when applied properly, can contribute to 
an agencies' case management and supervision strategies with a focus 
remaining on staff, offender, institutional and community safety. 
Through the incorporation of this information in professional 
development programs, agencies can become better equipped to manage a 
population that has increased dramatically since the 1990s and brings a 
unique set of challenges yet present reduced levels of risk to 
correctional and community settings.
    Background: Since the 1970s, rates of women's involvement in 
criminal justice has increased dramatically and more recently surpassed 
the rate at which men have been entering the system. From 1995 to 2005, 
the total number of female prisoners increased 57% compared to 34% 
increase for male prisoners (Harrison & Beck [2006] Prison and Jail 
Inmates at Midyear 2005 [NCJ Publication No. 213133]), primarily for 
drug and property related offenses. At years end 2008, 35% of women 
were serving sentences for violent offenses versus 53% of men; 29% of 
women were serving sentences for property crimes and 26% for drug-
related crimes versus 17% of men for both property crime and drug 
offenses (BJS, West, H. and Sabol W, December 2010, NCJ 231675), 
respectively. Other state and federal legislation has had severe 
consequences for women with children in both incarcerative and 
community-based settings. The impact of these legislative changes is 
often not well understood by correctional policymakers. The Adoption 
and Safe Families Act of 1993, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families 
(TANF), and public housing restrictions are just some of the laws that 
have unintended consequences for justice-involved women. According to a 
2009 report from Bureau of Justice Statistics, since 1991, the number 
of children with a mother in prison has more than doubled, up 131%, 
while the number of children with a father in prison has grown by 77%. 
This finding reflects a faster rate of growth in the number of mothers 
held

[[Page 46850]]

in state and federal prisons (up 122%), compared to the number of 
fathers (up 76%) between 1991 and midyear 2007 (Parents in Prison and 
Their Minor Children, Glaze, L. and Maruschak, L. April, 2008 NCF 
222984). This is significant for both justice-involved men and 
women but is rarely reflected in correctional policy and practice. 
Other significant legislation has been the criminalization in all 50 
states of sexual misconduct between staff and inmates and the Prison 
Rape Elimination Act (PREA). Although the original legislation was not 
specifically focused on women, the research that has since emerged on 
women via PREA has informed how we view sexual safety and predatory 
behavior involving offender-to-offender and staff-to-women offender 
offenses in correctional settings. Historically, correctional practices 
have been developed to meet the needs of the larger, male offender 
population, with the assumption that they should work equally well for 
men and women. Correctional practice has begun to incorporate some of 
the findings from the evidence-based research around risk reduction, 
and where correctly applied, it has resulted in improving policy and 
practice for male and female populations. However, many of the current 
correctional practices also have had the unintended consequence of 
driving women deeper into the system; particularly those with 
significant trauma histories, parental responsibilities, and lower 
levels of risk. With the emergence of gender-informed research and 
knowledge, identifying areas of risk and need more relevant to women 
has provided opportunities to focus and sharpen our practices in 
managing women with the objective of improving both intermediate and 
distal outcomes.
    Over the years, NIC has been in a position to work closely with 
policy makers, practitioners, academics, researchers and private/public 
entities that work with or are interested in gender-informed practices 
with women. As a result, NIC has launched a number of initiatives 
focused on women in pretrial, jails, prisons and community-based 
supervision settings. These initiatives include validated women's risk 
and need assessments, the Women Offender Case Management Model, and the 
Gender-Informed Practices assessment (for more information go to https://www.nicic.gov/womenoffenders). A recent draft document from the 
National Resource Center for Justice Involved Women (NRCJIW) identified 
ten areas that corrections professionals should be aware of when 
developing policy and practice with respect to women. These areas 
include: (a) The rate at which women are entering the criminal justice 
system while demonstrating a reduced risk to public safety; (b) 
correctional practices considered to be gender-neutral have been built 
around the management of male offenders, yet approaches that are 
gender-responsive increase the potential for improved outcomes; (c) 
policy and practice should reflect women's risk, needs, and strengths, 
which would contribute to increased success under community 
supervision; (d) risk/need instruments have not been validated on a 
female population and do not accurately reflect custody designations or 
programming targets; (e) justice-involved women have significantly high 
rates of childhood and adult victimization experiences (physical, 
verbal, and sexual abuse) which relates to their pathways into the 
correctional systems as well as informing their day-to-day behaviors; 
and (f) women with minor children are faced with significant challenges 
and responsibilities, whether they are incarcerated or under community 
supervision. This learning has been incorporated into much of NIC's 
work with women, but as the correctional landscape evolves, changes 
must be reflected in our products to the field.
    Purpose: This solicitation is an opportunity to develop a 
curriculum specific to women offenders that incorporates the emerging 
findings, grounded in research and theory, applicable to correctional 
leadership teams with policymaking or implementation responsibilities. 
NIC is soliciting applications to develop an evidence-based, gender-
informed curriculum with the goal of preparing administrators and 
managers to develop, enhance, and direct policy that will impact 
justice-involved women (pretrial, jails, prisons, community 
supervision) and the systems that manage this population. The 
curriculum will use a professional instructional design system as well 
as a learner centered model for effective training. The final 
deliverable product, reflecting a blended learning style of delivery 
will result from a collaborative planning process with the National 
Institute of Corrections and identified subject matter experts.
    Scope of Work: The cooperative agreement awardee will design, 
develop, pilot, revise and finalize a curriculum that will address 
critical areas of information that are unique to and/or occurring with 
significant frequency with women and will support agency leaders 
representing jails, prisons, and/or community corrections organizations 
in the development and implementation of gender-informed policy and 
practice.
    The curriculum must use a professional model of instructional 
design that incorporates elements of blended learning and will draw 
upon the knowledge of subject matter experts and curriculum design 
specialists. The design should use resources that are cost effective, 
reduce the number of on-site classroom training days, and incorporate a 
site assessment of current practices for strengths, challenges, and 
opportunities that impact planning and implementation processes. The 
curriculum must identify overall goals and objectives collectively and 
specifically for each module that will support the participant teams in 
their agency planning process. The curriculum should incorporate 
foundational research/knowledge on justice-involved women as well as 
guidance for sites to conduct gap analysis; plan in the context of 
fiscal, political, and cultural environments; identify desired change 
targets and methods to measure success and outcomes; ensure a research/
knowledge base for items in the curriculum and use of technology and 
software where appropriate. The applicant must also develop a plan for 
selecting a site to implement the pilot curriculum and collecting 
feedback that will be used to make revisions to finalize the 
curriculum. This will require choosing subject matter experts to 
deliver the pilot on site. Additionally, the development of a method of 
process evaluation is required. These are minimum project requirements.
    Key issues and challenges to developing and piloting this 
curriculum may include: Developing a blended learning design that is 
flexible enough to adapt to varying levels of participant knowledge, 
e.g., participants who are familiar with gender-informed research as 
well as participants who are new to this information; Curriculum that 
is research based, timely, and incorporates necessary elements to 
prepare agency management properly in the planning process for 
establishing gender-informed policy and practice in their agencies; 
Understanding differences in jail, prison and community corrections 
environments in the curriculum design; and determining a process for 
selecting and preparing a pilot site as well as implementation of the 
curriculum using subject matter experts.
    Document Length: The length of the document should be determined by 
content. Brevity and clarity are encouraged.

[[Page 46851]]

    Intended Audience: The primary audience for this curriculum is the 
leadership and management of correctional organizations interested in 
planning for the implementation of gender-informed policy and practice 
for their population of justice-involved women.
    Distribution: This product is intended to be distributed widely 
throughout the corrections field and will be available on the NIC Web 
site free of charge through the NIC Information Center.
    Meetings: The cooperative agreement awardee will attend an initial 
meeting with NIC staff for a project overview and preliminary planning 
prior to September 30, 2011. This meeting will be held in Washington, 
DC, or Aurora, CO, both official office sites of National Institute of 
Corrections. Additionally, the awardee should plan to meet with NIC 
staff routinely as determined 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.
    Project Deliverables: The final product will reflect revisions made 
to the curriculum post-pilot and a plan for process evaluation. The 
awardee must provide a detailed work plan with timelines and milestones 
for accomplishing project activities to the assigned NIC staff for 
approval prior to any work to being performed under this agreement and 
must designate a point of contact that would serve as the conduit of 
information between the NIC staff and the awardee.
    Document preparation: For all awards in which a document will be a 
deliverable, 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. All final publications submitted for posting on the NIC 
Web site must meet the federal government's requirement for 
accessibility (508 PDF and 508 HTML file or other acceptable format). 
All documents developed under this cooperative agreement must be 
submitted in draft form to NIC for review prior to the final products 
are delivered.
    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/general/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.
    Place the following at the top of the abstract: Project title; 
applicant name (legal name of applicant organization); mailing address; 
contact phone numbers (voice, fax); e-mail address; Web site address, 
if 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 the 
design and implementation of the project and how the key design and 
implementation issues and challenges will be addressed.
    Project Management: Chart of measurable project 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 
principle investigator and each staff member assigned to the project. 
If the applicant organization has completed similar projects in the 
past, please include the URL/Web site or ISBN number for accessing a 
copy of the referenced work.
    Budget: The budget should detail all costs for the project, show 
consideration for all contingencies for the project, note a commitment 
to work within the proposed budget, 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 $135,000.
    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. To be considered, applicants must demonstrate, 
at a minimum: (1) In-depth knowledge of research and practice regarding 
gender-informed (women) and evidence-based practices; (2) in-depth 
knowledge of practices, programs, and complexities in effectively 
working with women offenders as well as the system and staff 
challenges; (3) in-depth knowledge about the risk/need and strengths 
and capacity for resiliency with justice-involved women; (4) specific 
examples of expertise in directing project design, implementation, 
particularly with regard to curriculum development, and training; (5) 
demonstrated ability to work in collaboration with other experts in the 
field of gender-informed practices; and (6) ability and capacity to 
conduct Web-based events.
    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; a clear, concise description of all elements and tasks of the 
project, with sufficient and realistic time frames 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

[[Page 46852]]

this project and commitment to work with the budget proposed; and 
indication of availability work with NIC staff.
    Review Considerations: Applications received under this 
announcement will be subject to a collaborative review process. The 
criteria for the evaluation of each application will be as follows:
    Programmatic: 40 Points.
    Are all of the tasks and activities adequately covered? 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 and Administration: 20 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 as specified in the solicitation for 
this cooperative agreement?
    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?
    Budget: 10 Points.
    Is the proposed budget realistic? Does it provide sufficient cost 
detail/narrative? 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 a minimum, 
quarterly benchmarks? In terms of program value, is the estimated cost 
reasonable in relation to work performed and project products?

    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: 11AD13. This number should appear as a 
reference line in the cover letter, where the opportunity number is 
requested on Standard Form 424, and outside of the envelope in which 
the application is sent.

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. 2011-19561 Filed 8-2-11; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4410-36-P