FY 2022 New Grantee Orientation | CTAS Purpose Area 6: Children’s Justice Act (CJA) Partnerships for Indian Communities Program

LAUREN SMILEY: Welcome, everyone. We are just at the top of the hour so we'll go ahead and get started. Thank you so much for joining today's FY 22 New Grantee Orientation for OVC CTAS Purpose Area 6. We're very glad that you're here with us today. I'm just going to be covering a few quick Zoom items before we jump into our presentation materials today. First, everyone is in listening mode today so you will not need your microphone or video, those will remain off. If you are logged in through your computer, you have the ability to select if you want to listen in through your computer speakers or if you have headphones. There's a screenshot there of what that may look like for you. If at any time today you're experiencing technical difficulties or issues with this webinar, please type that in the chat box that can be found in your Zoom menu bar, or you can also email a support email there that we have listed on the screen, that is [email protected]. Again, if you're experiencing any technical issues today, please either drop that in the chat or feel free to email that address listed on your screen, [email protected].

For your awareness, today's session will be recorded. Some of the features that we're going to be using today, one is the chat feature. Feel free to open that up if you haven't done so already. Share your name, your Tribe, give a quick greeting to the group that's joined here today. We're also going to be using the Q and A feature throughout today's orientation as we pause occasionally to take questions, and that Q and A feature can also be found within your Zoom menu bar. Another feature within that Zoom menu bar you'll find is the ability to show captions. If you would like to enable that, you can do so by clicking on the Show Captions menu bar. Without further ado, I now would like to turn it over to Jessica Andrew, who is the acting deputy director for the OVC Tribal Division. Jessica, over to you.

JESSICA ANDREW: Thank you, Lauren, I appreciate that. Hi everyone. As Lauren mentioned, my name is Jessica Andrew, and I'm currently the acting deputy director of OVC Tribal Division, but I'm also a grant manager here within the Tribal Division as well. And I would just like to welcome you all again to today's new grantee orientation for Purpose Area 6. We've had the opportunity to meet a lot of you in December during the CTAS orientation as well as the Indian Nations Conference, so it's great to see many familiar names as well as a few new folks here on today's webinar. And for today's session, we're really looking forward to sharing more about CTAS Purpose Area 6, learning about the various projects that are being implemented, and introducing you to our amazing team here that's here to support you. From your OVC grant managers to programmatic TA, your financial TA providers, as well as our amazing team with the performance measurement tool, we're all here to support you and to show you the ins and outs of what it is to have an OVC grant and also what we can do to best support you as you implement these very important projects.

With that, before we get started, I do just want to thank T-VSTTA, your programmatic TA provider, for providing logistical support for today's webinar, the presenters for sharing their expertise, and again, all of you for joining our webinar today. Thank you also very much, and I'd like to pass it over to my colleague now, Carmen, to get us started. Thank you.

CARMEN SANTIAGO: Thank you, Jessica. Good morning, for the folks in Alaska, good afternoon. Welcome to the CTAS Purpose Area 6 webinar. My name is Carmen Santiago. I am a grant manager in the Office for Victims of Crime, Tribal Division. I am excited to be here with my colleague, Ramesa Pitts, to share some very important and useful information with you. Before we start, we would like you to know that all of your awards are very unique and different. This presentation will provide you a broad overview of information and resources that are relevant to all of you. Please note that there is a Q and A session at the end of the webinar, and as Lauren mentioned, you can enter your questions in the Q and A feature of the Zoom bar, or in the chat. And for some reason, if due to time constraints we're not able to get to all of your questions today, or you have a concern that is unique to your particular grant, please be sure to follow with your assigned OVC grant manager. And now I'm going to go over the learning objectives for the webinar. And we hope that at the end of this presentation webinar you have a better understanding of OVC's mission, you will be familiar with key grant documents, understand the terms and conditions of your award, and the importance of complying with the federal requirements, and be familiar with available resources to help you do your job. Next slide, please.

What is the Office for Victims of Crime? The Victims of Crime Act of 1984, referred to as VOCA, establishes the Crime Victims Fund and the Office for Victims of Crime, or OVC, as administrator of the fund. OVC is one of six components within the Office of Justice Programs in the US Department of Justice. As administrator of the Crime Victims Fund, OVC supports many programs and services that help victims immediately following a crime, and continue to support them as they rebuild their lives. Billions of dollars are invested annually in victim compensation and assistance in every state and territory, as well as for direct services, training, technical assistance, and other capacity building efforts. And I believe T-VSTTA will add the link to the OVC website in the chat.

First, I'd like to start with a very brief overview of OVC, the work we do and the kinds of programs that we fund. OVC is charged by Congress with administering the Crime Victims Fund, which is, it's a source of funding for victim services throughout the country. These services include programs such as your state compensation and assistance programs, programs that focus on assisting victims in Tribal communities such as your Children Justice Act Award through CTAS and Tribal Victim Services Set-Aside. OVC supports also discretionary victim services and anti-human trafficking programs. It responds to mass violence and terrorism incidents, both here in the United States and abroad. And it supports training and technical assistance initiatives and resources to help service providers build their capacity to better serve crime victims. OVC also provides some funding to other federal agencies that serve victims of crime, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the FBI, among others. Next slide, please.

OVC manages different grants to provide support to Tribal communities to enhance services for victims of crime through a number of Tribal specific programs. Some of these programs include Developing Future Victims Specialists, CTAS Purpose Area 6, which is our Children's Justice Act, Project Beacon: Increasing Services for Urban American Indian and Alaska Native victims of Sex Trafficking. And it also provide funding for discretionary programs. We also have projects that provide programmatic training and technical assistance as well as hosting and putting together the bi-annual Indian Nations Conference. And hopefully you were able to attend virtually or in person last year. Through these programs, OVC currently manages more than 750 awards, totaling over 400 million that supports these communities and victims. You can find out more about these programs by visiting our website, which explores Tribal grants and American Indian and Alaska Native resources in more detail. And T-VSTTA, if you can enter the link for the Tribal community, they always see support for Tribal communities in the chat.

I'm sure you all know what the purpose of CJA Purpose Area 6 is, but we'll briefly review that now. The purpose of this program is to improve the handling of child abuse cases, particularly cases of child sexual abuse in a manner which limits additional trauma to the child victim. And also, it's to improve the investigation and prosecution of cases of child abuse, particularly child sexual abuse. OVC funded 10 CJA applications in fiscal year 2022. And in the next slide, the next slide lists the award recipients and the assigned OVC grant manager. Congratulations on your fiscal year 2022 award. By now, I'm sure that you have met your OVC grant manager, but we'd like to take a few minutes to introduce my colleagues on managing the fiscal year 2022 CJA awards. Starting with Mary, if you don't mind turning on your camera and saying your name and the grantee that you work with.

MARY ATLAS-TERRY: Hi, my name is Mary Atlas-Terry. Thanks, Carmen, for inviting me to participate, and I'm really happy to see all of you grantees on this call today. My new grant under this program in 2022 are with the Alaska Native Justice Center, and their partner, the South Central Foundation, and also the Kenaitze Indian Tribe. Thank you, and I'm really glad to work with my grantees this coming year on these projects.

CARMEN SANTIAGO: Thank you so much, Mary. Now I turn it over to Jessica. Okay, let's pass it to Tanya, then. Tanya, if you're on the webinar, do you mind introducing yourself? Okay. I'm sure that they are tied up with meetings and other commitments at work, this is a very busy time. But I'm sure you have already met them virtually or over the phone. So now I will ask Lori. Lori, are you in the webinar? I see Dawn. Dawn, if you don't mind introducing yourself.

DAWN HILL: Hi, can you hear me?

CARMEN SANTIAGO: Yes, mm-hmm.

DAWN HILL: Yes, hello everyone, thank you for joining. I'm one of the newest grant managers, and I work with Pinoleville Pomo Nation and Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians. I really look forward to working with you very soon.

CARMEN SANTIAGO: Thank you, Dawn. And we're so happy that you're with the Tribal Division in OVC. And now, I turn it over to Yolanda. Yolanda?

YOLANDA CURTIS GIBSON: Hello everyone, hope everyone's doing well. I'm Yolanda Curtis Gibson, I'm a grant manager at OVC. I've worked here for almost nine years. And of the fiscal year 2022 CJA grantees, I will be working with the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community. And to colleagues from that Tribe that are on the call, I look forward to meeting you in person at the end of the month. Thank you, Carmen.

CARMEN SANTIAGO: Thank you, Yolanda. Next slide, please. So now that you have been introduced to the CTAS Purpose Area 6 grant managers, we would like to talk about our role. First and foremost, our job as grant manager is to help you. If you haven't already heard from your grant manager, they will contact you soon to discuss the requirement of your grant. In addition, grant managers, we monitor, that's one of our responsibilities as grant managers is to make sure that you are complying with the programmatic, administrative, and fiscal requirements of your award. We monitor your progress with the implementation, the development and implementation of your program. We perform desk reviews, we do that through phone calls with the grantee, reviewing your reports, progress reports, we do that in the office. And we also conduct programmatic enhanced desk reviews, we did that during the pandemic when we couldn't travel, and we also do onsite site visits. We review and approve modification to the awards. And when I say modifications, I'm talking about project period extension, you request for a project change or scope, and budget modifications. We also review and approve your progress reports, and we connect you with the financial and programmatic TTA providers as needed, and you will hear from them later in the presentation. And for those grantees that have been designated high-risk, we provide additional support, direction, and oversight. Next slide, please.

Now I'm going to talk about the role of the grantee. As a grantee you also have a role to play in the grant implementation and management process. I know that all of you have already accessed the award package in JustGrants, and accepted and signed the document accepting the award. Another role is to make sure you review the special conditions on the award document and determine what your organization needs to do to be in compliance with the grant conditions. Another role is to manage the project according to requirements, standards and guidance that are contained in the grant terms and conditions. We require you submit reports, including the quarterly financial status report, quarterly performance measures report, and the semi-annual progress report. We will discuss those requirements a little later in this presentation, Ramesa will cover that during her presentation. We ask that you complete all the deliverables as stated in your application, the solicitation, and your award special conditions. Please do not obligate or expend funds until your budget is clear. Many of your grants allow for a certain percentage to be spent before the budget is cleared by OCFO so that you can do things like begin hiring and travel for an orientation, or in the case of a continuing program, you can continue employing program staff. However, there might be restrictions on that if you have all the withholding special conditions attached to your award. We encourage you to please talk with your assigned grant manager about your specific awards and conditions to the award. Next slide, please.

And so briefly, I just want to touch about the project deliverables for award recipients proposing to establish a new child advocacy center or new program for serving victims of child abuse and neglect, the deliverables will be a written plan for conducting a community needs assessment and a written strategic plan outlining steps to establish and sustain the new program. And assistance from the TTA provider, programmatic TTA provider's available to help you with those deliverables if you need it. Next slide.

I believe most of the budget for fiscal year 2022 have been already reviewed or some of them are still in progress. If that's the case where your budget's still waiting for an initial review, your award has a withholding special condition that prevents you from obligating, spending, or drawing down any of your awards until beyond the dollar amount noted in the special condition. For those of you whose budgets have been reviewed by OCFO but have not been issued a final approval, you should have received notice from your assigned OVC grant manager about any budget changes that are needed in order for your budget to be approved. So please be sure to respond back as soon as possible with the required changes so that your OVC grant manager can help facilitate the submission of your revised budget to OCFO. I also want to highlight that there is technical assistance available one-on-one with budget revisions from OVC Tribal Financial Management Center, and you will hear from them later in the presentation. Next slide, please.

And in addition to your grant manager and the Tribal Financial Management Center, the DOJ Grants Financial Guide is a source that you can use to get guidance on financial questions you have about your grant. Here you find information about allowable costs, costs that require prior approval, federal financial reports, grant adjustment modifications, and a variety of other issues in this document. And the link where you can find this document is on the screen. I recommend highly that you keep this link handy, it's very useful and helpful. And T-VSTTA will put that in the chat. Well, the link is in the PowerPoint, so you already will have it there but welcome to add it to the chat. Okay, so I think that conclude my presentation, and now I'm going to turn it over to T-VSTTA. T-VSTTA is the new Tribal Victim Services TTA provider to talk more about the programmatic support they provide to grantees.

SHEREE HUKILL: Thank you, Carmen. My name is Sheree Hukill, and I am working with T-VSTTA as the training and technical assistance and capacity building lead. And I am so excited to be here today and get to meet the grantees, and to work with all the grant managers who are there to support your programs, and with TFMC who does a fantastic job in helping with all your financial needs. We are a new center for OVC, and we are transitioning and building upon all the TA that you guys have received from Fox Valley and Unified Solutions through the year and we, through the years, excuse me, and we'd like to thank them for everything that they've done. And I would like you to take a look at our beautiful and talented team that you see on the screen right now. Our team's made up of Native and non-Native professionals, and we have over 100 years of experience in capacity building, victim services, program management, and working within American Indian and Alaska Native communities. And we are thrilled to death to be here with you and to support you as you implement your FY 22 CTAS Purpose Area 6 grant. Next slide.

Our approach to TA is that we want it to be tailored to your specific needs. We want to help you to build sustainable programs within your community, and we want to provide hands-on training and assistance. All of our offerings will be victim-centered, trauma-informed, and culturally relevant to the communities in which you're working. We're going to be looking to you for input into the resources and trainings and types of gatherings that you would like to see offered by T-VSTTA. And all of our services are grounded in a deep understanding of Tribal sovereignty and the history of your communities. Our major goal is to make it easier for you to navigate the process of receiving and implementing grants, and to work with you and your grant managers to have successful programming. Next slide.

Some of the support that we will be providing with your guidance, some community building activities, the community needs assessment, which is one of your deliverables for your program and strategic planning, which is another deliverable for your program. If you need any assistance with those, please reach out to us, and as you develop your entire victim services departments, let us know and we can help you kind of guide through that process and do a comprehensive service model for you. Like I said, we look forward to meeting each and every one of you. Our team is sending out introductory emails this week, and you can contact us through [email protected], or our phone number is 833-887-8820. Like I said, we look forward to working with you and to collaborating with TFMC, providing the programmatic TA that you need, and working with TFMC on the financial side of the program. Lanisha, with that I will turn it over to you.

LANISHA BELL: Thank you, Sheree. I'm going to set my screen up really quickly. Halito, we are delighted to be with all of you today to talk about, we can go ahead and go to the next slide, April. All righty, we are delighted to be with all of you today to talk a bit about our services. My name is Lanisha Bell, and I am the TFMC director, the project director. I'm based in Philadelphia, Mississippi, near my childhood home in the Choctaw community. Prior to joining TFMC, I was a grants management and compliance officer for my Tribe. I also have extensive experience working in direct victim services. I saw many familiar faces and names on our call today, so I'm excited to work with you guys. My experience led to an appointment working for the Bureau of Indian Affairs as a former victim assistance national coordinator. It was a joint partnership with the Office for Victims of Crime. I'm happy to be with you today, and I'm going to hand it over to April.

APRIL BIRD: Lanisha, [Native Language] my name's April Bird, and I'm the lead financial specialist with TFMC. I'm excited to be joining you today from the beautiful Great Smoky Mountains in Cherokee, North Carolina. I've been with TFMC for about three and a half years. And prior to that, I worked with my Tribe, which is the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, as the education and training manager. And I also worked in various roles, management roles, at our Tribal casino. I earned my master's degree from the University of Oklahoma in legal studies for Indigenous people to be able to follow my dream of assisting Native people across the United States. And I'm happy to be here speaking with all of you today. All right, Lanisha.

LANISHA BELL: All right, thank you, April. So just a bit about TFMC. We launched in 2018 to maximize Tribal capacity and to work alongside OVC to provide training and technical assistance and resources to support the newly authorized Tribal Victim Services Set-Aside awards, which quickly also expanded support to CTAS Purpose Area 6, the Children Justice Act Partnership for Indian Communities program. And so, we began the Tribal partnership by getting to know the grantee we are working with and the community they serve. We recognize that not all Tribal communities are alike and that we are working with sovereign nations, and the importance of honoring the Indigenous ways of knowing. We understand that trust is required and that building that trust takes time. TFMC serves almost 300 Tribal entities with more than 800 OJP awards, and has conducted more than 400 individualized TA engagements. The TFMC team works closely with Tribal grantees and the OVC grant managers to develop varied and flexible grants financial management TA plans. This allows the grantees to receive individualized TA training in a virtual, in an onsite or a hybrid format, which is most responsive to the needs of the community to improve overall victim services. Okay, we can go to the next slide.

Our team, TFMC is composed of a skilled team of financial, and many of those are on our call today, financial and TTA and evaluation specialists uniquely qualified to serve grantees with a range of expertise including working in victim services throughout Indian country and Alaska, the vast financial management subject matter expertise, and familiarity with trauma-informed and culturally humble TA approaches. Now I'm going to turn it over to April, our TA team lead.

APRIL BIRD: Thank you, Lanisha. For those of you that we haven't had the pleasure of working with, I wanted to start by telling you about the type of support that TFMC provides. We do this by supporting new solicitations and the submission process as well as providing individualized TA to address grantees' award conditions, and/or risk factors. We work with grantees to enhance and strengthen their existing financial policies and procedures, support grantees in development of budget modifications and grant award modifications or GAMs. And we also help address audit findings and corrective action plans by conducting trainings and webinars on relevant grant financial management topics, and developing easy to use resources. We also work closely with OVC and other TTA providers to extend intensive individualized financial management TTA.

We want to hear from you. We schedule our hours to make sure our TA and financial specialists are available when you are. With regional representation across the country, the TFMC team is available to respond to grantees during your work hours spanning all time zones, from Alaskan villages to the Aroostook Band of Micmacs in Northeastern Maine. OJP.gov/TFMC is our primary publishing hub for ease of access. The website includes resources for financial policy and procedure guide sheets and job aids and DOJ quick access training links. The website also houses the webinar registration links and recordings, important reporting deadlines, and virtual support center information. And these resources are mobile and desktop friendly to meet the needs of the Tribal grantees in the field and in the office.

TFMC is committed to providing grantees with a range of options for receiving individualized TA and training, including virtual, onsite and hybrid formats. In all training and technical assistance delivery methods, TA and TA training teams commit to the following practices, learning about each Tribal community's unique culture, practices and traditions. The next one is developing an understanding of the Tribal Victim Services program's mission and vision. Next is sharing effective resources, tools, and materials. And finally, addressing other financial objectives identified by the Tribal entity and/or OVC. For virtual and onsite TA requests, pre-session conference calls with grantees are coordinated by the TA team, and an agenda delivery format and content are customized and driven by the grantees' specific needs and priorities. This format option allows TFMC to coordinate single or multi-day sessions, with each session covering a different grantee-identified topic.

TFMC offers a wide range of services including needs assessments, individualized technical assistance, support with financial reporting, review of existing financial policies and procedures, and recommendations to enhance existing financial practices to align with OJP grants management requirements. TFMC provides assistance with JustGrants and ASAP. We also provide current, relevant, and effective tools and resources for grantees to routinely disseminate information on current best practices, and facilitate peer sharing between grantees. Now Lanisha is going to tell you about some of those resources. Lanisha?

LANISHA BELL: Thank you, April. Navigating the complex world of grant management can be difficult and confusing. TFMC is committed to providing plain language resources to make your job easier. We offer a wide range of guide sheets, job aids and micro learnings and webinars that are easily accessible and understandable. Currently, TFMC has over 50 guide sheets, job aids, and all past webinar recordings are available on our website. Through consultation with Tribes and OVC, we've developed guide sheets on popular topics such as creating an entity budget, supplanting, time and effort tracking, lease versus purchase analysis, grant award modifications, and gift card policies, as well as JustGrants.

TFMC offers topic-specific webinars that you can watch at your convenience. Some of the more popular topics are supplanting and duplicative costs, budget development, direct and indirect costs, and post-award grant management. We continue to develop new webinars based on your input. We're going to the next slide.

TFMC is excited to share our learning portal. We focused on relevant topics and created self-paced online courses. These courses include video tutorials. April, are you able to pick up?

APRIL BIRD: Of course. All right, so these courses include video tutorials and online learning modules. The courses also take into account internet access challenges, and include downloadable materials including templates and job aids. And Lanisha put the link in the chat to our website, our OJP.gov/TFMC website.

At TFMC, we understand that your time is valuable, and you have many competing responsibilities. We aim to provide seamless coordination for you, including regular check-in sessions with your OVC grant manager, TFMC, and programmatic TA providers like T-VSTTA. By doing this, we can address any questions or challenges that may arise, and we're here to work collaboratively with you to help address your individual needs.

From Lanisha and I, thank you for joining us today, and we'd like to use the remainder of our time for any questions that you may have. Thank you.

SHEREE HUKILL: I'd like to do some polling questions now. You'll see on your screen, what's the status of your grant? If you could check one of the available options. And then, what type of TA would you like from the programmatic side or the financial side? And if you have specific requests already, please go ahead and put those in the chat and we will make sure that those are recorded and we reach out to you for those. And then we also have, what type of challenges are you currently facing with your grant programs, if any? And again, if there's other things that are not listed there on the poll, place those in the chat too because we really want to hear from you and base all of our TA responses on your specific needs at any given time. We'll take just a few minutes for you to complete the poll. And Lauren, when those poll results come in, would you mind sharing those with the group?

LAUREN SMILEY: Sure thing, Sheree. I'll keep the poll open for another 20 seconds, and then we'll go ahead and close it and can broadcast the results out to the group.

SHEREE HUKILL: Well, that is exciting that 75% already have a cleared budget and 42% are already fully staffed and offering services. That is great. Let's see, unsure of TA needs now, that perfectly makes sense too, but know that we are here when you are sure and can reach out. And workforce availability. We have noticed this from our interaction with TVSSA grantees and CTAS grantees that that has been an issue faced by many of you, and we are hoping to devote a lot of our efforts to workforce development and assisting you in those areas. Okay, Lanisha or April, do you have anything to add from TFMC's perspective on those poll results?

LANISHA BELL: Sheree, this is Lanisha. No, kudos to all of you guys in terms of the budget clearance, but we are available to assist, so whether it's your grant manager or you can reach out directly to us. We'll also go ahead and put the link or the address to our virtual support center. If you guys want to reach out directly to us, we will definitely make sure to connect. Thank you guys again and for all of your efforts. Thank you.

SHEREE HUKILL: And it looks like Jessica prompted us to say that yes, we can provide onsite training and technical assistance, so if you need to make a request for that, you can just reach out to TFMC or to T-VSTTA depending on programmatic or financial needs, and we can arrange to have staff onsite to support you in that way as well. Thank you, Jessica, for that reminder. And I think we can close the poll and go to the next section. And Carmen and Ramesa, I believe this is yours on special conditions.

CARMEN SANTIAGO: Yes, thank you, Sheree. Ramesa, are you available? Are you ready? She might be trying to troubleshoot her audio.

RAMESA PITTS: Can everyone hear me now? This is Ramesa.

CARMEN SANTIAGO: Yes.

RAMESA PITTS: Hi. Thank you for that. Yes, I was double muted, so thank you. So again, hello to everyone. Again, my name is Ramesa Pitts. I am a grants manager within the OVC Tribal Division, and I will be your next presenter on this next segment of the presentation. Now we're going to spend some time on understanding your award and those special conditions that go along with your award. I will highlight some of the key special conditions on your award today. But unfortunately, due to time constraints, we don't have a lot of time to review every special condition, but we will focus on those that require action from you as a grantee, and that apply to all awards funded under this particular program. Next slide, please.

What is a special condition? The award documents serve as the official documents binding the recipient and OJP to the grant agreement. This document includes the name of the recipient, the project title, the award period, the budget period, the type of federal funds, the amount of federal funds, the award number, and special conditions that must be met during the award period. These special conditions are terms and conditions that are included with your award. Special conditions may include additional requirements covering areas such as programmatic and financial reporting, prohibited uses of federal funds, consultant rates, changes in key personnel, and proper disposition of program income. Some special conditions may be based on the program or the nature of the award itself, but regardless of the program office for the award, there are several special conditions that you will have with any OJP award. Next slide, please.

Unlocking your special conditions. You want to look at two things when you think about this, where can you find those special conditions and who should read those special conditions? Those special conditions can be found directly in your award package, which is your official grant document. And all staff involved in the award, more particularly to include the grant award administrator and all financial managers or POC, should read those special conditions, know those special conditions, familiarize yourself with those conditions, and in cases where those special conditions are unclear or ambiguous, I highly recommend that you reach out to your OVC grant manager to have those conversations in terms of clarity for those special conditions that may be unclear to you as the grantee. Next slide, please.

The mandatory financial training, that training is a free course that is offered by the Department of Justice. It has 24 financial management components. It is available online using the link noted on the screen, and we will also drop the link in the chat feature. Please keep in mind that this training must be completed within 120 days of accepting your award. Both the grant award administrator as well as all financial POCs are required to complete the training. It takes about 14 to 16 hours to complete the training, and it is an asynchronous training, so it is a self-paced training. You can go in and out of the training as long as that training is completed within 120 days of acceptance of the award. If you do not complete the financial training within 120 days of accepting the award, your grant manager will be required to place a hold on your funds until it is completed. It's important to complete that within the timeframe allotted. Once the appropriate individuals complete the training, please make sure that you email the certificates to your assigned grant manager as well as upload a copy of the certificates to every open and active award in JustGrants. And most importantly, if you have any questions or concerns about this training, please contact your grant manager or the OCFO customer service center at the phone number and email noted on the screen. Next slide, please.

Grant reporting responsibilities. Earlier we mentioned the part that you would play as a grantee, your role as a grantee, which is to ensure you complete all required reports. For your CJA Purpose Area 6 grants, you are required to submit four kinds of reports. They include the performance measures report, the progress report, the financial status report, and the final report. The performance measures report is submitted on a quarterly basis using the OVC performance measurement tool, also known as the PMT. This reporting is due within 30 days of the end of each quarter. The submission deadline dates are January 30th, April 30th, July 30th, and October 30th. These dates are also noted on your OVC reference sheet, which you should have already received. There will be an overview of the PMT system and the performance measures for this program a little later on during this session. The semi-annual progress report is a report that must also be completed in JustGrants. The deadline for the semi-annual reports are January 30th and July 30th.

Next, we have the quarterly financial reports which must be submitted in JustGrants as well. The submission deadlines for these reports are the same as the quarterly PMT reporting date, January 30th, April 30th, July 30th, and October 30th. And then finally, we have the final report, which is due in JustGrants no later than 120 days after the end of your award date. These reports and combination with ongoing discussions with your OVC grant manager and other monitoring activities help OVC to assess your implementation progress on an ongoing basis. It is also something that helps to identify if technical assistance is needed in order to ensure the success of your particular project. Next slide, please.

Another special condition is the confidentiality policies and procedures, which is on all of your grants. These policies and procedures must detail how you will maintain the confidentiality of victims' names, addresses, telephone numbers, and other identifiable information, and detailed procedures for information sharing between partners. You must submit a signed written certification saying that your policies and procedures comport with confidentiality and privacy rights and obligations of federal, state and Tribal law applicable to the work of your program. If you are an existing grantee, you should already have these in place and can submit them to your grant manager to confirm that they meet OVC's requirements. If you are a new grantee and need assistance with developing these policies and procedures, then your OVC funded programmatic training and technical assistance provider known as T-VSTTA can help you create those documents. You will hear a little more from T-VSTTA about the work and the services that they provide a little later in this session as well. Next slide, please.

The last special condition I will talk about today will be the community needs assessment. Applicants are required to complete and submit a community needs assessment. This only applies to award recipients proposing to establish a new child advocacy center or new program for serving victims of child abuse and neglect. The purpose of the community needs assessment is to identify gaps and other issues in the community's current response to incidents of child abuse and neglect. The needs assessment must be submitted within the first 18 months of the grant period, and the needs assessment can be waived if completed prior to grant application submission and within the past three years. It's important to remember that your OVC programmatic TTA provider is also available to help you complete this requirement. If assistance is needed, I highly encourage you to reach out to your OVC grant manager, and they will put you in contact with the appropriate TTA provider. Next slide, please.

Next, we will talk about the consultant rates. It's important to remember that the daily consultant rate should not exceed $650 per day or $81.25 per hour. Typically, an eight-hour day for example, may include preparation, evaluation and travel time in addition to the time required for actual performance. As specified in 2 C.F.R Part 200, written prior approval must be obtained for those costs that exceed an eight-hour day. This is just a note that this does not mean that the rate can or should be the maximum limit for all consultants, however, it is important to provide accurate information as it pertains to the daily or hourly consultant rate. And with that, I will now turn it over to the PMT team for their portion of the presentation.

ASHLEY ELLIS: Hi everyone, thank you so much for joining us. I am Ashley Ellis, and I'm the performance management coordinator for OVC. And later on you'll hear from my colleague, Tina Dimachkieh. I'm going to start us off on the performance measurement training. Next slide, please.

What exactly are performance measures? Performance measures are a specific value or characteristic that measures the outputs of a grantee's activities and services in demonstrating accomplishment of the goals and objectives of OVC's programs. It's a very long sentence, but essentially every quarter you'll be providing performance measure data into the performance measurement tool, and we'll be able to gather just a lot of great information on the activities that you're conducting and the people you're serving and the types of services you're providing. If we can go to the next slide, we'll kind of dive a little bit deeper into that.

I like to say, what is the who, what, when, where, and why, and how for performance measures? There is a ton of information that we can gather from the data that you provide to us. Who is being served and who is providing services? What type of service is provided and what type of organization is serving them? When were services provided or when was the grant funded in that kind of time period? Where are programs located and which jurisdictions are being served? Why are people seeking services, so what kind of victimizations are people experiencing? And then, how is funding allocated and how is it supporting victim services? A lot of information that we can gather from a quantitative perspective, so a lot of numbers. And then we'll also have questions that are more narrative so you can provide a lot of the context that kind of supports answering these questions and we can have a really full picture of what is going on at the programmatic level. Next slide, please.

A couple high level things that we do with performance measures. We have high level overview documents that you'll see in a sec, we call them state profiles. We also have topical snapshots. We can also go to the Tribe level, it doesn't have to be at the state level, these are just some of the most common products that we've put out with performance measure data. We can also do annual reports. And then we can also assist with data-driven decision-making, and this is what we really emphasize using the performance measures for, so you can look at funding efforts over time and location. You can look at how far your services are reaching or if there's a gap in a specific type of service or a specific type of need. You can do trend analysis over time, whether that be with the types of victimizations you're seeing or the types of services being provided or requested. And we really enjoy providing data visualization and mapping tools. That's just a really fun way to see your data. And a variety of ways that we can use these performance measures to help you make decisions at the programmatic level. Next slide, please.

These are just some snapshots that you can see of some products that we're working on. We have a Tribe specific topical snapshot, and this kind of walks through for all our Tribal service providers, the kind of main number of individuals served, the types of victimizations they're experiencing, the types of services that are being provided. And then, again, an example of our state profiles. A lot of people like to see kind of these maps you can see in both providing those visuals in terms of where victim service providers are located and maybe if there's a very common servicing provider or a very common victimization experience and kind of mapping that. These are just some examples of products that are in progress. Next slide, please.

I'm going to talk about a few high-level data points just to showcase some of the data from fiscal year 2022. This comes from about 33 grantees that provided data into the PMT in fiscal year 2022. The high-level snapshot on the screen right now, you see the number of individuals served, and so we broke it out by state, but again, we can always do it at the Tribal level. And you can see we have total individuals served and this includes both new and returning individuals throughout the fiscal year. If you had one individual receive services all four quarters, they would be counted up to four times. But then we also have a column here for the new individuals served, and those are individuals who are receiving services for the first time. So just two ways to look at how many people are being served. Next slide, please.

And then for all of our new individuals served, they provide demographic data, showcasing some of the breakdowns that we were seeing in the last fiscal year. Obviously, the largest group being the 0 to 12 age group, but also seeing individuals served in other age groups. Next slide.

Here's a breakdown. We have a gender breakdown, we've got 67% being female, 33% being male. Next slide. This is a really interesting category looking at the most common victimizations that were reported, and again, this is all self-reported data. The most common being child physical abuse, 1,508 victimizations reported. The next largest category being domestic and family violence followed by child sexual abuse, bullying, and adult physical assault. These are not all the categories that you can report on, we have about 26 victimization categories that people can report, these are just some of the most common. Next slide, please.

And then another section that we like to report on is the common services, the most common services that are reported by instance. You can see here, emergency shelter with 603 instances is kind of one of the most common services in the last fiscal year. We also have transportation assistance, individual counseling, emergency financial assistance, and crisis intervention. By using all of this information, you can look at it, again, just in one fiscal year, you can break it down by individual quarters, you can look at trends over the quarters to see if there are certain time periods within the year that you're saying the number of victims being served increases or decreases over time. And what might be the things going on in the community that could increase or decrease reporting. As well as looking at your fiscal year and then going back if you have older awards and saying, over the last three years, this is the trend we're seeing in emergency shelter. Maybe it was not a very common service being provided at the beginning of your award, and then by the end of the award you see it's the most common. Just a couple ways to think about how to use your data and how to use it to make decisions going forward with what are the needs of your community and what are the needs that you want to fill in your program. Those are just, again, some high level findings from FY 2022 based off 33 grantees' performance measure data. I think if we go to the next slide, I'll hand it off to my colleague, Tina, to walk through more on the performance measures.

TINA DIMACHKIEH: Perfect, thank you so much, Ashley. As Ashley said, I'm Tina Dimachkieh. I am the training and technical assistance specialist, and I provide support to OVC grantees around performance measures and performance management of their OVC award around the reporting piece. Just a little bit to add to what Ashley has said, performance measures, aside from collecting the data to really understand the services that you're providing and the individuals that you're providing services to, it also helps us understand if you are meeting your goals, if you are reaching your goals and what progress is being made towards the goals.

Collecting data, submitting data to OVC, and following the reporting requirements does help us look at the goals for your grant and see where we need to provide support, where there are some challenges, opportunities and successes. And what this really means for you all at the grantee level in real life is that you will need to have a data collection mechanism in place for your organization. You need to be able to capture and securely save performance measures and the data that you are collecting. You should be able to collect the prime grantee data, which is your information, and also your sub-grantee data separately. You then will need to make sure that you are tracking the data, making sure that you understand the performance measures, that you define what those performance measures that OVC has selected for your solicitation mean to you, to your organization, and really understand the terminology behind the measures as well, and also align them to your objectives for your award so you can create consistency in data reporting.

You can be consistent across quarters and across staff members that are working on the award. You then will need to also report the data, and we always ask grantees to identify a point of contact, an individual that will be the reporting person for your organization that will be entering data into the PMT, and that really knows what the measures look like and what the requirements for reporting are. But also, to have a backup because as we work with grantees, we always learn that certain staff members have been promoted, have left to go to a different organization, and having a backup is always very important so you don't fall behind on reporting and on your requirements for reporting for your grant.

And also, you should be analyzing the data that you are collecting and looking at it periodically to see if you are meeting your goals and objectives, if there are any challenges and issues that are arising, and also to make sure that you're working with your grant manager to address any grant related information that you have been able to collect from the data. Analyzing the data for increases in services, for decreases for just changes across the numbers across quarters will help you better understand your grant and your services, but also, it'll help you with future grant opportunities as well.

We know that our CTAS Purpose Area 6 grantees, a lot of you have multiple OVC awards that you have received over the years, and for that, we ask that our CTAS grantees make sure that they are tracking victim services or any of your performance measures separately across your awards. And make sure that there are no duplication in the data or any cross reporting across the different awards. Each award or funding bucket should be reported separately, and the different data that you are reporting should be applicable to that specific award that you are reporting on. If you have multiple awards and if you need assistance and if you are unable to divide up the data or separate it across your different awards, because as we know the services are very similar, please do feel free to reach out to us, to your grant manager, to your TTA provider, to make sure that they help you navigate that piece so you are not duplicating the data or reporting inaccurately across different OVC awards. Because then that, going back to our data analysts, that will skew our numbers and the numbers that Ashley and our data analyst team look at when they are reviewing and creating those reports that she shared with you.

Let's talk specifically about performance measures and about the actual reports, the reporting requirements. There are two different platforms that you'll be using to report your data. There's a performance measurement tool which has been mentioned previously, it's the PMT. It's OVC's reporting system where you go in and electronically submit your qualitative and quantitative performance data. The second part, or the second platform is JustGrants, which, if you've accepted your award, you should be familiar with JustGrants. It is an end-to-end experience for grant management, but it also includes the performance reporting piece that I will speak to in a little bit. The types of reports that are due. You heard from OVC earlier about the reporting piece. We only focus our team, the performance management team only focuses on the performance reporting piece, not on the financial side.

Those are the reports for performance reporting that you're seeing on the screen here. We have our quarterly performance report. As mentioned, there's four different reports in a fiscal year, we follow the federal fiscal year, and I will show you the schedule in a moment. These quarterly performance reports are due in the PMT, and those are where you collect quantitative data, which are the numbers that you're collecting every quarter on the services you provided and the individuals that you provided services to. They're due in January, April, July, and October, they are due within 30 days of the quarter closing.

The second type of report is a semi-annual report. The semi-annual report, in addition to completing the quarterly data, the quantitative data, there's a set of narrative questions that grantees are required to report on, and the narrative questions relate to grantee and sub-grantee activity. Think of the semi-annual reports as you really just sharing your story of what actually happened over the past six months with your grant award and with your grant activity. These reports are generated in the PMT. You respond to the questions in the PMT and then you submit them in JustGrants. This is where the two platform piece comes in, for the semi-annual reporting. There it's in the name semi-annual, so you submit them twice a year in January and July. You do not submit them in April or in October.

Then there's the final report which was also mentioned. The final report, you should not be worrying about the final report right now as a new grantee is receiving new funding. But I always like to include it in here to make sure that you keep that in mind over your award life cycle. Because the final reports are really important and the work that you are doing on reporting every quarter will benefit your final report if you are reporting consistently and accurately and on time. The final reports, usually you will pull all the information that you have collected over the different quarters and semi-annually, and if you've included all the comprehensive information, you should be able to generate that final report very easily and just put all the pieces together even if you've had staff turnover or changes throughout the life of the award. Including information on an ongoing basis throughout the different reports and different quarters will help that final report and that is why I included in here. Keep it in mind, it's far away but it'll come up.

Next, let's look at the reporting schedule. As mentioned, we follow the federal fiscal year which starts on October 1st and ends on September 30th. There are four different quarters, October to December. When that quarter closes, you have 30 days to enter your reporting requirements which complete your reporting requirements. For the first fiscal quarter, October to December, your information is due by the 30th, January to March, due by April 30th, April to June, due by July 30th, and then that last quarter, July to September, due by October 30. As you see on the column on the right, it shows you what is due. And as I mentioned before, the semi-annual narratives, that piece where you are required to use both platforms, is only due twice a year in January and in July.

Even if a grantee does not have any activity to report on, if they have not spent any funding on their award or used any funding for their award, they are required to report. We do understand that you don't have any data to report if you haven't done any activity for the grant or spent any money on your grant, but you are still required to report in the system. To complete that piece of it, you would just indicate that there was no grant activity, I'll show you what that looks like. But in order for you to still be in compliance with your requirements for reporting, you do need to submit a report from the start of your award to the end of your award, even if there was no grant activity during that quarter or that semi-annual reporting period. And I know in that poll, most of you said that your budgets have been cleared, which is fantastic, but some of you haven't. We do have reports coming up, we already had a report in January, and we have one coming up in April as you see, you still have to report even if that budget is not cleared, you would just need to indicate that your budget has not been cleared.

Let's talk about the performance measurement tool itself, the PMT. The PMT website is ojpsso.ojp.gov. All grantees of OVC that have received an award in this fiscal year should have access to the PMT. This does not mean that all of you have currently have access to PMT. Only somebody in your organization that's listed as the grant award administrator in JustGrants should by now have access to the PMT. If you do not, reach out to us and we can assist you and grant you access. You need to have a username and a password. In the screenshot here, you'll see what the actual platform looks like when you're trying to log in. Each person should have their own account for security purposes.

If you need access to the system, you don't have access to the system, you need to have your own account. Our help desk can do that for you, or your organization can do that for you as well, you have the ability to add users on the organization level, and I'll show you how to do that. There's also always that Forgot Your Password option. We always like to include that in here because, again, you're not really visiting this platform more than on a quarterly basis, you're not going in here every single day, you're only going in here to actually complete your reporting when the reporting opens up for that specific quarter. So that does happen a lot. I cannot tell you how many times I forgot my password as a grantee. So that's always an option, do not panic, you can always just reset your password or contact the help desk to help you do that.

To get access, your organization, somebody in your organization that's listed as the grant award administrator should have already received an email from our OVC PMT help desk with a new account creation. They should have an account, but they need to make sure that they activate their account. The first step is to make sure you follow the link in that email that you've received, or that individual follows the link in the email they received and they validate their account, they enter their security questions and make sure their information is all correct and that they update their password. Okay, so once you have access to the system, there are multiple tabs that we'll be discussing that you can access in the system itself or on the platform. The initial tab is the Home tab. That includes general information about the platform and about reporting, and it's really about the reporting schedule that I just showed you. The Administration tab is where your federal awards are listed, but also it is the User Information tab where you can manage users, that's where you can add users, delete users if they no longer work for your organization or they no longer need access.

The Profile tab is the default tab. When you first log in, you are directed to that Profile tab that includes just general information about your organization. It includes who your grant manager at the OVC level is and who the point of contact for your organization is. This information is all pulled from your JustGrants profile, so if you need to make any changes or updates, you would need to do so in the JustGrants system and then it'll migrate over to the PMT. The Enter Data tab and the Reports tab. Enter data, you enter your data for each quarter, and then the Reports tab, you check on those reports to make sure that they are submitted and that everything is in line. Those are your two most popular tabs that you will be using once you have access to the PMT and you start working with your award. We also have the Need Help tab, which directs you to our OVC performance measures webpage, where our resources are to assist you with the PMT and with the performance measures.

Here's the Administration tab, this is what I had mentioned. You can add a new user yourself. This is exactly what it will look like. It lists out the current users for you. You have the ability to delete a user if that individual no longer needs access to the system or has left the organization, and you can add a new user. There is no limit on how many users you can add. You can add as many users as you think need to have access to your award data or need to access the PMT to enter data on behalf of your organization. All you need to do is include or provide first and last name, so full name, and email address and a phone number. Once you create a new user, an auto-generated email from our OVC PMT help desk is sent directly to that user for them to access the system for the first time with their first time login instructions.

Here's the Enter Data tab, this is what it looks like. You are required to select your federal award. For CTAS grantees that have multiple awards, it's very important to make sure you are selecting the right award. They all look very similar, especially after a long day of work, all those numbers start to just get locked in together. Make sure that you are selecting the right federal award so you're not skewing the data or messing anything up when you are actually reporting. Once you select the federal award, you are then directed to select the reporting period that you are entering data on. The system does not open a current reporting period if you have not completed the prior reporting period. If you have passed due reports or if you just had access to the system this month, January reporting has already happened, or whichever reporting period has passed and you did not complete that report, the system will not unlock the upcoming report for you because you need to complete the one that's prior to that in order to be able to proceed.

Now once you go into the Enter Data tab, you select your federal award and you select a reporting period that you are providing data on or entering data on, this is the first tab that you'll see, it's the Grant Activity tab. This has two questions. The first question is asking you if this is the last reporting period during which the award will have any data to report. As new grantees in this orientation, it should never be the last reporting period just yet, unless you're in a closeout process, unless you're terminating your award, your response to number one should always be no, because it's not the last reporting period that's typically towards the end of your award life or if there's, for any unfortunate reason, that award is being terminated earlier than the end date.

The second question is the grant activity question, was there any grant activity during the reporting period? If you've spent any funding, any OVC funding from that specific award, then yes, there was grant activity, even if you did not provide direct services or you did not have specific data to report based on the actual performance measures. If you did not spend any funding, you have not started working on your award and no funding has been spent, then that answer will be no. And that's okay. If you were to select no, you're required to provide an explanation as to why that is. A very simple explanation such as, our budget has not been cleared, we have not hired any staff members to work on this award just yet, or really different reasons that apply to your organization. If you select no grant activity, the system then will shut down the performance measures so you do not need to complete any of the performance measures, because if you had no grant activity and your response was a no, then the system knows that you have no data and all your data is going to be zeroed out anyway, or all your responses are going to be zero. So you would not have access to the performance measures if you select No to number two. If you were to select Yes, then you move on to completing the data entry for that reporting period.

This is what it looks like once you hit Save after you responded to question one and two. If your response shows no grant activity, then you would only be prompted to answer the semi-annual questions if it was a semi-annual reporting period. In January and July, you'll still have to answer narrative questions even if you don't have data. And that's a set of eight different questions that you need to provide a response to for your award goals and objectives. That's what it looks like on the left-hand side, that screenshot, if you have no grant activity. If you did have grant activity and you selected Yes to question two, then you will see the different performance measures, we call them question sets, you will see the different question sets that are applicable to your award.

This screenshot is from my federal user access so it has a long list of question sets, that is not what you'll be reporting on. You will only be reporting on the question sets that are aligned to your CTAS solicitation, so not all of these are items you'll be reporting on. They are already aligned in the PMT for you, you don't have to skip through any of the questions. And if you want access to those questions ahead of time before you can access the PMT, they are on our webpage on the solicitation map for our Transforming Victim Services program, which your award falls under.

Once you've completed all the questions in your question sets, you've provided a response to all the questions, you get to the Review tab, and this is where you are required to submit your report. You cannot submit a report and mark it as complete as you see on the screen here if you are missing any responses, you have to provide a response to every single question in the report to be able to submit your report. If you don't have an answer or if a question is just not applicable to your organization or to the work that you've done in that quarter, zero is an acceptable answer, but you cannot put, Not Applicable, and cannot leave it blank. You would have to put in a zero in order to be able to move forward. This is what it looks like. You'll need to select the check mark to mark your data entry as complete, provide any additional comments that you'd like your grant manager or a data analyst to see, and then you would just hit Save, and your report is now complete.

Just a few tips and tricks. The platform works best in Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge in the latest browser. There are some hide and skip functionalities in the platform that don't work well when you are not in the latest browser and could cause some issues on your end as you are trying to navigate the platform and answer all the questions. And again, make sure you enter whole numbers. Make sure that any field that's labeled with a number, which are all the performance measures, all the question sets, make sure you enter a whole number. No special characters, no letters will be accepted, the system will not let you proceed. Make sure you enter a whole number, no decimals or anything like that, it has to be a full number, a zero is acceptable.

For the narrative responses piece and it is semi-annual narrative, again, the system does not accept any special characters, so it has to be in plain text. A tip that I always tell grantees to follow is to complete your responses in a Word document and then just copy and paste them once you're ready. Once you've reviewed them, once you, if you have leadership look over them, once you've done all that and gotten them approved on your end, that's when you can submit them in the PMT just to make sure you don't lose any data or anything like that. Always be sure to hit Save and Continue because the system does time out after 30 minutes of inactivity. You definitely don't want to lose any of your data. If you hover over any underlying text within the question sets, it pops up instructions for you to be able to really just understand the question better. It gives you some instructions around what exactly is OVC asking for within that question set or for that specific question.

Then the Reports tab. This is where you are going to be generating your semi-annual report, that is the piece that is due in JustGrants. You will go to the Reports tab, this is where you can see the status of your award or your report for that reporting period, who completed the reporting for that reporting period, and when it was completed. And then you can generate that semi-annual PDF, that's what we're looking for. You'll have access to an Excel spreadsheet of your data as well, but we are not looking for that. To complete the requirement in JustGrants, you don't need that Excel spreadsheet, you only need the semi-annual PDF. This document is generated by the PMT. You just have to click on it and download it. But the PMT basically merges your two quarters of data over the semi-annual reporting period into one report. This is what your grant manager is looking for in JustGrants.

This is the document you'll need to provide. Here's what it looks like. PDF is the correct one, as you see, it shows two quarters of reporting, first quarter, second quarter, and then it combines the total over six months period. If you are submitting the Excel spreadsheet, that is not correct, your grant manager will need to change requests, that JustGrants performance report back to you so you can provide the right document. You can tell if the Excel spreadsheet only has data for one quarter, whereas the PDF includes two quarters and that's your hint to get that semi-annual report.

Briefly on resources. Again, you can access them through the Need Help tab on the PMT platform, or you can go to OVC performance page and they'll be right there for you. You fall under the Transforming Victim Services program so that is the specific webpage that you'll be directed to. The list of the performance measures is on there. We have user guides, we have recorded webinars on how to use the system and how to respond to specific questions. We also have a training around how to respond to the narrative questions and what your grand managers are looking for. And we also have a dictionary and terminology resource that can really help you and help any new staff members really understand what OVC is looking for in terms of the terms that they are using in their questions versus what your organization, your area, your community, your Tribe is using.

If you have any more in-depth questions that you can't find in the resources or you really just want to talk to someone to help you navigate the reporting process and our resources, we have our help desk. Please feel free to reach out to them. You can email them or you can call them, I will give you that information in a moment. But you can also schedule time with myself to go over anything that you need in a PMT or a welcome session, we call them coaching sessions. They range between 30 minutes to an hour to just answer questions and walk you through the process to make sure that you are complying to the reporting requirements and that you are able to move forward and provide OVC what they are looking for for your federal award. Here is the information for our help desk, the OVC PMT help desk phone number and email. But I also included the JustGrants' email address for their help desk, because they are a separate team to provide support for the functionality of JustGrants. We can provide support around PMT and anything performance measures and recording related for both platforms, but if it's a platform specific question, you would need to go through the JustGrants team. And that is all I have. I'm going to turn it back over to Lauren. We will be here if there are any questions or anything needed.

RAMESA PITTS: Since we don't have any questions, I believe, Lauren, I can close us out with taking a look at some of the key takeaways. I just want to mention as seen on the screen, one thing to remember is to review your special conditions. Again, be familiar with those special conditions. Have those conversations with your grant manager if you're unclear about any of those special conditions. You also want to take action if you have a withholding special condition. Again, work with your grant manager to satisfy those special conditions withholding so that they can remove those from the actual award. You want to really know that your grant manager is here to help so reach out to your grant manager whenever you have questions. And obviously whenever necessary you have some things that are unclear, definitely reach out to your grant manager.

You want to remember to complete the grants financial management training within 120 days of accepting the award. Again, the grant award administrator as well as all financial POCs are required to take the training. It is asynchronous training. It takes about 14 to 16 hours to complete the training. Once that training is completed, you are, as a courtesy, just a recommendation to send those training certificates to your grant manager, but most certainly, ensure that you upload all of those certificates into JustGrants for all of your open and active awards. You want to keep track of the reporting requirements as mentioned and submit those reports in a timely fashion. And it's important to remember that training and technical assistance, both financial and programmatic, are available to you at no cost. If you find you're in a situation and you may need some assistance with building out your budget modification or submitting your reports or needs assessment or things like that, then you want to contact your OVC grant manager for technical assistance. And as I stated earlier, they will put you in contact with an appropriate TTA provider. Next slide, please.

This slide has some important websites and resources. They include all of the ones that you see here on the screen, the OVC Tribal Division webpage, the DOJ Grants Financial Guide, the System for Award Management, known as SAM, the JustGrants link, and the DOJ Grants Financial Management online training. I highly encourage you to familiarize yourselves with the, more specifically the DOJ Grants Financial Guide, which serves as the primary reference manual to assist OJP, OVW, and the COPS Office Grant award recipients in fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility to safeguard grant funds and ensure funds are used for the purposes for which they were intended. The financial guide also contains a variety of laws, rules and regulations that affect the financial and administrative management of your grant. Next slide, please.

This slide has, hopefully, some contact information that might be useful to you as you manage your award where you may have to contact someone within OVC. We have the OVC main line number in case you can't reach your grant manager. There is the web link as well as, the email address, should I say, as well as the telephone number for the main line, the JustGrants help desk information as well, the OVC PMT help desk information, and the OVC customer service center phone number and email address. Once again, keep this information handy just in case you need to make contact with someone at the help desk level. And I believe now this brings us to the end of this new grantee orientation. Congratulations again, and I will turn it over to T-VSTTA to see if we have any questions at this time. Thank you.

SHEREE HUKILL: Thank you, Ramesa. We did have one question in the Q and A about if you would be receiving a copy of the slide deck. And yes, you will be receiving that as well as a link to the recording of the webinar. And Jessica, has LeBretia been able to log on to give closing remarks or not?

JESSICA ANDREW: Yes. If you could move LeBretia to the presenter role, she will wrap us up on the OVC side.

SHEREE HUKILL: Thank you, Jessica, appreciate that.

LAUREN SMILEY: Hey Jessica, this is Lauren. I don't see LeBretia as logging in as an attendee. There is a number which I will unmute and allow them to talk in case that is her, it's the dial-in number.

AMY FILKO: Yeah, that's what I see as well.

JESSICA ANDREW: Okay, I see her as a panelist.

LAUREN SMILEY: Wonderful.

JESSICA ANDREW: LeBretia, if you are on, feel free to turn on your camera and take it over. Today is the day for tons of technology issues on our end. It might take a second for LeBretia to get on. But while we are waiting for LeBretia, if there are any other final questions, feel free to put those in the chat or the Q and A. And as Sheree had said, not only are we going to send out the PowerPoint slides and have the recording, but it's also going to be housed on the OVC website. If you have staff that were unable to attend, we'll have multiple ways to be able to access the presentation. And of course, your TA providers as well as your grant managers are also really great resources in case you do have any questions as well.

LEBRETIA WHITE: Okay, can you hear me now?

SHEREE HUKILL: We can, LeBretia, yes.

LEBRETIA WHITE: Awesome, awesome, wonderful. Thank you. My name is LeBretia White, as has been shared. I'm the new Tribal Division director, and I'm very pleased to be in this position. It's definitely thus far been a great opportunity, I think I'm in week seven or eight now with joining OVC, the Tribal Division. But just wanted to pop on because I had a meeting conflict at the beginning of the webinar, and thanks Jessica for giving opening remarks on my behalf. I just wanted to pop on to say hello to everyone and I look forward to working with you as grantees, as well as our contractors that are providing training and technical assistance, and to our Tribal Division staff who are most capable, we stand available to support you in any way that we can. Never hesitate to reach out to us should you need assistance. Thanks everyone. I don't want to prolong the webinar, and I think at this time someone is checking the chat for questions that we can respond to. Again, I'm looking forward to working with everyone. Have a great afternoon. And now, onto Q and A.

SHEREE HUKILL: Thank you, LeBretia. And it doesn't look like we have any questions in the Q and A or the chat at this time. With that I'm sure that no one will be terribly disappointed if we give you back 15 minutes for your afternoon. And please, just to reiterate what LeBretia and Jessica said, we are all here to support you and help you through this process, and look forward to working with you. Everyone have a wonderful afternoon. Thank you.