FY 2023 Developing Future Victim Specialists to Serve AI/AN Victims of Crime New Grantee Orientation

DAWN HILL: Today's goal is to inform participants and provide the knowledge and resources to successfully manage new Office for Victims of Crime, also known as OVC, you'll hear that a lot, DFVS [Developing Future Victim Specialists] grant awards.

Next slide. We have some program overview and objectives. The goal of the program is to develop a workforce of victim service professionals to provide direct services to AI and AN victims in locations that are remote and where positions are hard to fill. And this is done through engaging interested individuals with connections to these areas.

The objectives are to establish or continue operating, but for you, you're new, establish and administer a structured program linking interested individuals with internship opportunities with a BIA or a Tribally run victim service program. And this can include programs run by Tribal consortia or Tribal nonprofits. I do want to stress and emphasize that internship placement need to be at victim service programs run by BIA or Tribes. And the focus should be on serving federally-recognized Tribes.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to your grant manager.

Alright, number two, provide supervision and training to participants in the program by experienced victim service professionals, and establish baseline data and a data collection process for performance metrics. Our next slide shows where you're located. These are all of the 2023 DFVS grantee locations in the service areas.

I'll take like five seconds for you to review those, to see who you are. All right. Next slide.

Now getting started. So the first thing you need to do is access and accept the award in JustGrants. If you've done that, you can just put up a little thumbs up, if you haven't, it's okay. We'll work with you if you need help. Review and comply with the special conditions on the award document. You want to manage and implement the project according to the grant terms and conditions. You'll hear more about that.

Submit all required financial, programmatic and performance measure report. Complete all deliverables as stated in your application, the solicitation and in your award special condition. Please do not obligate or extend funds beyond the percentage noted in the special condition until you receive final budget clearance.

Alright, upcoming. We have a DFVS Performance Measurement webinar that you do not want to miss. Those folks who should attend are those implementing the program and responsible for performance reporting. It is on Wednesday, November 29th, 2023. The time, as you see there, is 1:00 to 2:00 p.m. So a quick hour about performance measurement and there's a link, but more information will be provided if needed.

Now before we start, there are things you need to know. The award conditions and language mentioned during this webinar are specific to the FY 2023 DFVS Solicitation. If you have grant specific questions regarding any of your award conditions, like I said, contact me, Yolanda, or Ramesa. You'll hear from Ramesa a little later. And please be sure to read your award document and all special conditions. That is very, very important.

Unlocking your award conditions. So where can I find the award condition? In your Award Package, which is your official grant document. And who should read the award condition? All staff, I mean, all staff involved in the award should be familiar with these award conditions. You should read it and know it and understand what it says. And we will be happy, happy to explain any award condition that you are having trouble understanding.

What is an award condition? An award condition, they are terms and conditions outlining your grant award package. We have a visual here, which is in JustGrants. And you go to the tab that says Award Package. And right at the bottom, you'll see Award Conditions. Once you click on that, it's a long list, but it's okay. You can read through those. But there's a long list of award conditions that you should be familiar with.

Next slide. Award Conditions. We have some award conditions that are active and some that are removable. So removable are some conditions that can be quote, unquote, "removed" when they are met, or if the requirement is no longer applicable. Some removable conditions are withholding funds until satisfied.

So you may hear us say, "There's a condition that's still left that withholding your funds." So yes, please contact us if you see one of those on your award. And active, some conditions remain active throughout your project. That's just standard.

So when you read your Award Package, you check in JustGrants, and like I said, talk to one of us if you have questions. And that grant closeout, which is no time soon, you must certify that all conditions were met. But keep that in mind as you are going throughout your program. And now I will turn it over to Yolanda.

YOLANDA CURTIS GIBSON: So hello again everyone. Now we are going to do a deeper dive into specific special conditions, what they mean, and what you must do to ensure compliance. So the specific special conditions that we will be discussing during today's webinar are listed on the screen. I won't read all of them to you, but just want to emphasize that we'll focus on these.

This is meant to be an overview. And as Dawn mentioned, while we won't touch on all of the special conditions on your award, you should make it a point to read your award document and review all of those special conditions. Those listed here are those that require the most urgent action from all of you.

Next slide please. Okay, so first, well there are generally three types of award conditions, general, programmatic, and withholding. First, we're going to cover general special conditions, and these are special conditions that apply to all grants and cooperative agreements that are awarded by the Office of Justice Programs.

Next slide please. So the first special condition I'll touch on is related to the DOJ grants financial guide. When you or your authorized representative accepted your award, you agreed that you would comply with the guidelines in this document. The DOJ financial guide is your reference for all grant financial concerns. It also incorporates the requirements in 2 C.F.R part 200, which is also known as the Uniform Administrative Requirements. So in addition to using your grant manager as a resource, this document is your go-to guide for financial concerns related to your grant. The link to the financial guide is on the screen and it will also be placed into the chat box.

Next slide please. Okay, so the next special condition I will cover is the requirement to complete the DOJ financial management training. This training is required for the grant award administrator, and that person is generally the programmatic point of contact for your grant, although different organizations set them up differently. But it's required for the grant award administrator and all financial managers that are listed in JustGrants.

The training must be completed within 120 days after you accept the award. In addition, if you have any changes in your point of contact, that new point of contact must also complete this training and it must be completed within 120 days of that point of contact change in JustGrants. Generally, you should expect to complete this training about every 3 years.

You'll notice that the language in your special condition says that completion of the training on or after October 15th, 2020 will satisfy this condition. So if you've already completed the training on or after that date, you should be good to go. After you have completed your training, please be sure to send your certificate to your grant manager.

Okay, so any personnel that are working with minors must have a determination of suitability or essentially, a background check done. There are some specific requirements about what that background check must entail. There is an OJP website exclusively dedicated to outlining those requirements and educating you about them. The link to that site is on the screen, and the link is also in the chat box or will be placed in the chat box if it hasn't been already.

Okay, so your DFVS grant, well, your DFVS awards are grants. They are not cooperative agreements. Therefore, you do not need to go through the DOJ conference cost approval process for each conference or training that you host as long as the costs for that event are included in your approved budget. They also have to comport with the DOJ Financial Guide limitations and cost thresholds.

There are some costs that are generally not allowable under this grant program. Those costs include food, beverages, meals, or refreshments for meetings, conferences, or trainings. Trinkets are also generally not allowed. Trinkets, it's a very, it's loosely defined, but it can include things like t-shirts, portfolios, hats, et cetera.

We do understand that there are some items that are considered trinkets that could potentially be used to serve a genuine outreach or awareness purpose. If you want to go the route of purchasing something that could potentially be considered a trinket, if it's non-paper based and you want to use it for a genuine outreach purpose, please talk with your grant manager about that purchase before you actually expend the funds on that.

In addition, any costs that are incurred outside of the project period are unallowable. If your application included any unallowable costs or activities, your grant manager will request that you remove those costs from your budget.

There is a general special condition on all grants related to high risk designation and your agreement, if you're designated as high risk, to comply with additional requirements that are imposed by DOJ. So if you are designated as high risk by DOJ, these additional conditions or restrictions might include having to be paid on a reimbursement basis, perhaps requiring additional and more detailed financial reports. It may mean that you would be subject to additional project monitoring or have less notice of a monitoring site visit than we would normally give.

If you're designated as high risk, it may also require that you or your sub-grantee obtain technical or management assistance. It could also mean that some additional prior approvals requirements would be established. However, if you have any questions surrounding high risk designation in your specific award, please consult directly with your OVC grant manager.

The next special condition that I will cover relates to rates paid to individual consultants under your grant. It's important that the rate you pay consultants is reasonable and generally consistent with the market rate for similar services.

Please note that the maximum consultant rate for OJP is $650 per day or $81 and 25 cents per hour. If you want to pay a consultant more than that, you'll need to get a prior written approval from OJP. Prior approval request generally require additional justification and documentation.

So the maximum rate of $650 is based on an 8-hour workday. An 8-hour day can include preparation, evaluation, and travel time in addition to the time spent on actual performance. However, it's important to remember that the maximum rate cannot and should not be paid for all consultants.

Again, as I mentioned previously, the rate should generally be consistent with the current market value for the service provided. And to support this, your consultant rate agreement file must contain a documented market analysis and justification of the agreed upon rate. If there's no supporting documentation, consultant expenditures may be questioned during an audit or monitoring review. So if you need some assistance with determining the current market value, you can check out competitive contract bids. You can also take a look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics Wage Data By Area and Occupation website, and the link for that site will be placed in the chat. The DOJ Financial Guide also has a section on consultant rates, so you may also want to check out that document for some additional information.

Okay, so I'm sure that all of you know there are reporting requirements for your grant awards. For this program, you will be required to submit semi-annual progress reports, quarterly financial reports, and a final report.

So your progress report, and that's a programmatic progress report, is done semi-annually and it's done directly in our grants management system, which is called JustGrants. When you do your programmatic reporting, you'll be required to input your performance measures directly into JustGrants.

In addition to that, you'll be required to complete a narrative template, and that template will be provided to you after this meeting. Both of those are submitted directly in JustGrants and they are due January 30th and July 30th of every year.

The financial reports are submitted on a quarterly basis. They are due within 30 days of the end of each quarter, and the dates or the deadlines for those are generally the 30th of January, April, July, and September.

And then your final report, and this is actually both your final progress report and your final financial report, they are due no later than 120 days after your award end date. So your fund, just keep in mind that your funds will be automatically frozen if you do not submit your reports by the deadlines. And with that, I will now turn things over to Ramesa.

RAMESA PITTS: Thanks, Yolanda. Hello, everyone. My name is Ramesa Pitts. I am a grant manager in the OVC Tribal Division, and I am currently managing two of the DFVS grant awards. And so now with that, we can continue moving through the webinar, and I will now provide an overview of the programmatic award conditions.

So this slide here just reiterates that there are three types of award conditions. The programmatic conditions are award-specific conditions, and these conditions are active throughout the life of the award.

Next slide. So as it relates to the programmatic conditions, there are a number of programmatic award conditions. The confidentiality policy is one of those conditions that applies to all DFVS awards, which states that your organization needs to have written policies and procedures that clearly state how you will maintain the confidentiality of victims' names, addresses, telephone numbers, and other personal identifiable information.

You also need to have documented procedures for information sharing amongst partners. And in order to satisfy this particular condition, you will need to submit a signed written certification to your OVC grant manager certifying that you have written policies and procedures in place and that your data privacy and sharing protocols are in line with the confidentiality and privacy rights and obligations that apply to your jurisdiction.

OVC has a confidentiality template, and if you've already met with your OVC grant manager, you have already seen this template and should have already completed and returned the document to your OVC grant manager.

Next slide, please. So, products. The development of products is another programmatic award condition. Any products that are developed using grant funds must be reviewed and approved by OVC at least 60 days prior to publication, distribution, or use. This includes reports, videos, conference presentations, articles, and widely circulated publications.

And just as a reminder, the OVC disclaimer language must be included in the publication document. And as an added note to that, the disclaimer language can also be located in your award conditions in JustGrants. You can also reach out to your OVC grant manager who can send the disclaimer language to you directly if needed.

Next slide. So as you can see on this slide, previously, as it relates to using funds for curriculum development, the requirement was for grantees to contact TTAC first to ensure compliance with OVC's design standards. But that process has now changed, and now grantees should contact their OVC grant manager to initiate contact with TTAC. So just a quick reminder of the new process here.

Next slide, please. Coordination. So per the grant award conditions, grantees should coordinate or collaborate with other grantees under the DFVS grant program. So please make sure that you collaborate with other grantees under this program to ensure that your intended service areas do not conflict with another grant programs as host sites or service areas.

If you find that there is some sort of overlap, please contact your OVC grant manager to further discuss your action plan in resolving this matter. There will be a chart with the grantee locations that will be provided to all DFVS grantees. So be on the lookout for that chart, which should be forthcoming shortly after the webinar concludes.

Next slide, please. So as it relates to the award special conditions, in order to ensure transparency and accountability in the management of grants, there are certain costs that require prior written approval. These costs are specified in 2 C.F.R. 200.47 and further discussed in the DOJ Grants Financial Guide Chapter 3.6, section that talks about cost requiring prior approval.

So some examples of those costs requiring prior approval are on the screen. As you can see, the compensation for consultant services in excess of the current OJP consultant rate maximum limit, the sole source procurements in excess of $250,000, the publication plans, the purchase of Automatic Data Processing equipment and software, also known as ADP, and the pre-award costs. So just be cognizant of some of these items, and if prior approval is required, please reach out to your OVC grant manager.

Next slide, please. So we will go straight into the withholding of the award conditions, and the withholding of the award conditions can restrict a grantee. So I want to be clear on that, that they can restrict the grantee from drawing down funds if the grantee is not in compliance with these conditions. The withholding conditions should be addressed immediately. I think Dawn had touched on that early in the presentation. So work directly with your OVC grant manager on how to have these conditions removed.

 Please be mindful that the withholding award conditions can be added to your application or award at any time. And again, some withholdings can restrict the grantee from drawing down funds, so you want to make sure that you work closely and directly with your grant manager to satisfy any withholding conditions.

Next slide, please. So this slide here shows you where you can locate the award special condition holds in JustGrants. You want to go to the Funding Balance and Availability tab. And here, you can see that this grantee has four special condition holds.

Next slide, please. The financial withholding. The financial withholding is a hold when your budget is still under review by OCFO. So prior to final budget clearance, you may be required or requested to revise your budget. If this is the case, prior to submitting the revised budget in JustGrants, you must make sure that there are no mathematical errors and ensure that your budget totals the exact amount of your award. And you also want to make sure that you send a copy of the revised budget to your OVC grant manager for review. I just want to note that while your budget is undergoing the final budget clearance, you can obligate, expend, and draw down up to 10% of your award amount.

Next slide, please. Indirect costs. If there is a withholding for indirect costs, you will need to email a copy of your most recent IDC rate agreement to your OVC grant manager and upload a copy to your award in JustGrants. If that current rate increases or decreases, you must submit a budget modification GAM in JustGrants along with the updated IDC rate agreement.

For grantees using a de minimus rate of 10 percent, those grantees are required to complete the de minimus certification form. You can talk to your OVC grant manager if you need a copy of that form, and then I believe that there will also be, the link will be dropped into the chat. So you can also see that link in the chat.

Next slide, please. So when it comes to satisfying a withholding award condition, it is very important to remember to take action and submit the required documents to your OVC grant manager. Once you satisfy the condition, your OVC grant manager will remove the special condition hold, your grant POC would then receive notification that the award condition has been removed. We ask for your patience since it may take several days or several weeks to fully remove any special condition holds in JustGrants.

Next slide, please. So noted on this screen are some important resources and websites that you should keep handy at all times throughout the project period of performance. So these links will also be dropped in the chat for your reference.

Next slide, please. Here, you can find some useful contact information. These are all email addresses and phone numbers you should also keep handy at all times, and I believe this information will also be dropped in the chat.

Next slide, please. So your support team can be seen here. Your support team consists of your grant manager who you want to keep in close contact with, have frequent meetings, you know, ask those questions that may be a little, you know, may have be in a gray area or what have you. You want to make sure that you talk to your grant manager and talk through any of those issues.

T-VSTTA, who is our programmatic TA provider; and then we also have a financial TA provider known as TFMC. So if you need programmatic or financial support, you can talk directly to your OVC grant manager who can loop you into one of our TA providers.

And then the PMT Helpdesk. For any performance issues or any issues with the system itself, you can contact the PMT Helpdesk. And then JustGrants, of course. If you have any issues with JustGrants, any technical issues in JustGrants, then you can also reach out to our JustGrants Helpdesk.

Next slide, please. And here, we have some key takeaways. So these were pretty much all mentioned throughout the presentation. Review your award conditions. You want to make sure you're familiar with those award conditions. You want to make sure if you are unclear on any of those conditions that you contact your OVC grant manager and talk through those award conditions. And you want to make sure that you take action.

If there are any withholding award conditions on your grant, you want to make sure that you satisfy those so that your OVC grant manager can remove those award conditions. Again, your grant manager, we are all here, myself, Yolanda, and Dawn, we are all here to provide you that support that's needed so that you can successfully fulfill your projects.

You want to take the financial management training, which must be taken 120 days, as Yolanda mentioned, from acceptance of the award, and must be completed on every three-year rotation. You want to know those reporting requirements as mentioned by Yolanda, again.

You want to make sure that you are aware of those deadlines and that you submit those reports in a timely fashion. And training and technical assistance, both financial and programmatic, we also have TTAC and all of those TA providers can be provided to you for free, at no cost to you, so please reach out to us if you have any technical assistance that's needed, again, on the programmatic side or training and technical assistance or for any financial support.

And I believe this brings me to the end of the presentation, and so now we will pause to see if there are any questions. Okay, well, it looks like we don't have any questions at this time and so I will now turn things over to T-VSTTA. Sam?

SAM SAMUEL-NAKKA: Thank you, Ramesa. So as I mentioned, I'm with... Perfect. Thank you for driving the slides in the back. I'm with T-VSTTA, the Tribal Victim Services Training and Technical Assistance program. We provide no cost programmatic training and technical assistance to American Indian and Alaska Native victim service programs.

If we can move to the next slide, please. Thank you. So honoring the unique contexts and needs of victim service programs, we provide tailored assistance to support grantees in developing sustainable programs to serve victims and survivors of crime on their healing journey.

Our T-VSTTA team brings over a hundred years of combined experience in victim services from a lot of diverse perspectives, and are located across the country to include people located in Alaska, Oklahoma, New Mexico, and a few states on the east coast as well. There are a few things bulleted on our framework for this slide, but just wanted to highlight that our framework is rooted in a trauma-informed and culturally responsive approach.

Next slide, please. So our assistance can come in many forms and is shaped by the unique needs and capacities of the grantees we are engaging with. This might be a quick question to answer, a quick call to answer a question, or it could be a few coaching sessions to work through a specific challenge together. We offer peer learning spaces to learn from one another on a specific victim services topic, in person gatherings, or more intensive support over longer periods of time.

Aside from T-VSTTA's assistance coming in many different forms, we also address a lot of different topics, really recognizing the intersectional nature of victim services and managing victim service programs. So this could look like supporting grantees and navigating aspects of your grant, like aligning program narratives and timelines to meet your goals. That could look like the development of intake forms, screening tools, or developing a strategic plan or community needs assessment. This could also look like crafting a multi-disciplinary community response to MMIP or building program staff knowledge on a specific victimization like human trafficking.

In this space, we also provide logistical support for DFVS meetings, like coordinating the meetings. So you'll hear from me again after today with a doodle on scheduling future meetings as well. You'll also receive a biweekly e-blast from T-VSTTA that has resources and information relevant to your work and quarterly newsletters from us with other opportunities to engage in TA. And your grant manager might connect us for support, but you can also reach to us directly.

We work collaboratively with OVC and the other TA providers to support each of you. So please don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions or need additional information. We'll put our contact email and phone number in the chat. And it's also on the bottom right of the slide. And with that, we'll turn it to Lanisha.

LANISHA BELL: Awesome. Thank you, Samantha. (speaking in Native language) I am Lanisha Bell. I am the Director, the Project Director for TFMC, so I am coming to you by way of Mississippi Choctaw. So 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 of our training and technical assistance delivery methods, TA and training teams commit to the following practices: learning about each of the Tribal communities, the unique culture, practices, and traditions, developing and understanding of the Tribal victim service program's mission and vision, sharing effective resources, tools, and materials, and addressing other financial objectives identified by your organization or by OVC. For virtual and onsite TA requests, we have pre-session conference calls with grantees coordinated by the TA team. So an agenda delivery format and content are customized and driven by the grantees, by your specific needs and priorities. So this just allows us to coordinate either single or multi-day sessions. Each session covering a different grantee identified topic.

We can go to the next slide. So we offer a wide range of services. We conduct needs assessments, we provide individualized technical assistance, we support grantees with financial reporting, review financial policies and procedures, and regularly make recommendations to enhance existing financial practices to align with OJP grants management requirements.

TFMC provides assistance also with JustGrants and ASAP systems. We routinely, sorry, routinely disseminate information on federal grants financial management best practices to include current, relevant, and effective tools and resources for grantees and facilitate peer sharing opportunities between grantees, such as open forums.

So I just wanted to take a minute. We also have our virtual support center. The email is on the slide, and I believe we'll also put that in the chat, and our website is listed there for all of our resources. Yolanda mentioned earlier a bit about the grants financial management training requirement that's needed to clear your award condition.

So TFMC also has a Tribal grants financial management training which would provide you the same type of certificate, but it's specific. We've adapted the OCFO training specific to Tribes. So we actually have another cohort that's going to begin in December. So if any of you guys need to kind of do that, to kind of check that compliance off your list, definitely reach out through the VSC or through your grant manager so they can connect us and we'll be happy to add you. If it's not in this cohort, we do have two more cohorts coming in the new year, so I just wanted to make sure to plug that today to make sure that you guys know that we are an available resource in addition to, so the training in addition to individualized TA. So definitely don't hesitate to reach out to us.

I'm going to now pass it over to my colleague Samantha.

SAMANTHA LOWRY: Thank you, Lanisha. Hello all! My name's Samantha Lowry, and I am so excited to be here. I have been along for the journey with this grant program for a few years now, and I am eager, eager to meet you all and to work through program and evaluation. So really my role, so I am with the Office for Victims of Crime's Training and Technical Assistance Center. S

o again, another TA provider that is a free service and support for you all. But I am here really to focus on evaluation and make it just a bit less scary than it tends to be for folks. I know when you're a TA provider, many times, evaluation is this added element working with data, interpreting data. So I'm here to support that aspect in any way that you would like.

I'm going to talk a little bit about what that structure looks like. So what we've done over the course of a few years is start to develop and refine along the way what it is that you all are doing. So I am here to listen and learn from you all to really understand what you're doing within each of your grant programs as well as where there's a lot of synergy across your awards.

And so here is a draft logic model that we've used throughout some of the evaluation work with this particular program, and you'll see some alignment with what you all are doing, right? So this is really building from what is kind of part of your programs and already within what you have written in your proposals and are expecting to do along the way.

There are some intricacies in here where, as the program has evolved, for example, the program began working with students only, and now it's inclusive of individuals that can be college and university students, but others as well. And so we just keep refining this as the program evolves and as you all find new ways to kind of decide what is your measure of success, what really defines the outcomes for your program. And so we'll keep this live as we progress together and talk through each of the various areas. It's not something that you need to memorize or know off the top of your head at any point.

That's what I'm here for is to help kind of work through each of these areas and talk about, you know, is there a particular area that maybe you hadn't intended on measuring but you're really interested in it. So that's what I'll be here to support along the way. So just to give you like a more specific tangible way of thinking about what it is that the evaluation is capturing, we really just have a large number of questions that we want to answer about all of what your efforts are doing when you think about evaluation.

So how is the internship program being implemented considering successes? We want to hear all about the great things that you're doing. And you put these in different places. And so if you're documenting that through progress reports, that's great. We get that data. If you've got challenges and barriers that you're documenting and sharing with OVC, these are all places which I call secondary data, where we'll capture a lot of that information and look at trends and themes across awards so that we can help to demonstrate a little bit more of what the cohort of grantees is doing in addition to what you all will be showing as individual grantees.

Thinking about what is a successful internship, so I always like to start and lean into what you all are saying about your programs. What does that success look like, right? So for some, it's really about, you know, having interns, sharing knowledge, building a program. Some have outcomes that are more focused on the sustainability of the program and what the interns are doing long term. Are they staying in the victim services field? So we really have a lot of different angles that we consider in the evaluation and in collaboration with you all. But also, how is the fellowship contributing to the needs of interns? We want to know how it's contributing to your needs.

Your needs as either a host organization, as the grantee, as the victim service provider in partnership with the host organization. Just considering, you know, what it is that is your goal as an organization or as a grantee knowing that this has a real focus on the interns or the fellowships themselves. But there's a lot that can be gleaned from what you all are doing and what successes you are feeling within yourselves and your organizations. But also considering gaps in existing terms of availability and accessibility of the internship program.

You know, with the last cohort of grantees, the pandemic was something that was new and had just come into play. And so we talked a lot about what that meant for the program, and, you know, I always like to talk with you all about what the numbers are actually showing so that the data is informing decisions and what you all are doing rather than driving it, right?

So when I think about data being an information avenue, when I look at the number of interns that have completed a program, we need to unpack that a little bit and really understand, you know, what was driving those completions. If there are these added contexts of something like the pandemic, then that's something that the numbers can't tell us without your insights and that added context in grounding the numbers in your spaces.

So you'll hear me ask a lot of questions along the way as we unpack some of those pieces. But also the evolution of your grant awards, right? We understand that your priorities today are reflective of what you may have written in the proposal and what you're really hoping to achieve, but there may be some changes and adaptations that happen along the way.

And so we certainly want to hear and learn about priorities as they emerge and as there's gaps that are identified across the program and across--across grantees, because that's certainly something that I'll be here to help reflect on some of those in terms of showing you data and results from that data, and then you all telling me, "This is a place that we are really wanting to focus."

And then you have all of these great TTA providers and OVC to help you through the challenges that are beyond evaluation. So I'll stick to data and evaluation, all of the others will be here to help with all of the additional areas. But then thinking about the impact at those different levels, like I talked about, in terms of whether it's an impact being felt by the interns or the fellows. Whether it's at the host organization level, if it's within a victim service organization and beyond.

Now you're probably wondering, "Okay, that was a lot. That seems like a lot of data. Is it different than what's in my proposal, what I was expecting?" Right? I get all of that. So what I did here on this slide was present some of the different views of where data comes from and where the evaluation can be most helpful.

So you all heard through the earlier conversations, there's performance measurement data that you're submitting on a semi-annual basis. So that's something where you're already submitting it, and we will pull that data out, and utilize it, and share it back so you all can see what that looks like as a cohort of grantees. In addition to performance measurement data, there's also program data.

And when I call program data, that's all of the goodies that you all collect and maintain. You all are sitting on such an incredible amount of information, that to me as an evaluator, is considered data. And so we'll have opportunities to get together and to talk about your data and find out if there are things that you'd like to share to be part of the evaluation. Really to highlight the different aspects of your program and bring together some of the measures that you're all kind of implementing at the same time.

So for example, I know you all are doing some baseline measures to really understand some of the places that interns are starting at when they begin the program, those entrance interviews. And then when you think about on the other end of the spectrum as the interns and fellows are graduating from the program or completing the program, you know, what was the progress that has been made since that initial conversation and entry point into the program.

So all of that is tremendously beneficial to understanding some of the ins and outs of what you all are doing. Because each of your programs is not exactly like the other, right?

There's a lot of uniquenesses that we can help to show the different outcomes for. And then like I mentioned, we're here along the way, so I will be available to you all as well as a team of folks from OVC TTAC to do check-ins related to the evaluation. And so we'll do these regularly so that we can talk with you. If you have evaluation questions, I am open ears to anything.

When you mention logic models and data, I am always the one that's going to come smiling and ready to dive in to all of those hard places. And so we'll be doing those regular check-ins so that I can be there as a support and help with anything evaluation related. But then there's also these unique points of collecting additional information that may go above and beyond what you all are already are doing. And so in those spaces, one example is intern follow-up interviews.

And so while you all are doing entrance and exit interviews, one of the things that we are here to offer is follow-up interviews to where we can connect with interns that have completed the program and talk with them three months down the line and at varying time points to understand where they're at post program.

If that's something that you're already collecting, then in our check-ins, we'll talk about that and see if there's a way that we can utilize what you're collecting rather than having to burden the interns twice with two different interviews. So it's really a collaboration that we'll have together, and I'm just very excited to be here and help out with evaluation in any ways that you need.

And there's a lot of familiar faces out there which I'm really excited to have you all back and new faces that I'm eager to get to know you. So that is what I have for you today. I put a slide here just so that you could see my contact information because I know we're throwing a lot of contact information at you, but Samantha Lowry with OVC TTAC, and we'll make sure that you have that for additional next steps, and I'll be reaching out to you all as you get settled in your awards. So I'm going to go ahead and turn it back over to OVC so that we can do the closing. So Dawn, I'm passing the mic to you.

DAWN HILL: Thank you, Samantha. So on behalf of OVC and the Tribal Division, we really want to thank you for taking the time to attend today, and we are so excited to work with your program. So on behalf of your grant managers, please, please, please don't forget, if you need us, we are here for you. All right, we are letting Elsie close us out.

ELSIE BOUDREAU: Thank you all so much. This whole webinar and the programs that you're creating really makes my heart smile because we're creating people building capacity. So it's beautiful. I love it.

So I just want to close out in a good way, and I want to bring Grandma Rita into the space. She's a traditional healer. She was. And so in her words she says that, "We are free to be who we are to create our own life out of the past and out of the present."