Sunday, April 6, 2025
4/6/2025
Community Project Funding/Congressionally Directed Spending - Construction - This project provides Architectural and construction services for the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County to fund constructing a third floor for the future Nashville Assessment Center (NAC), which will be constructed at 1354 Brick Church Pike, Nashville, Tennessee, 37207 which is estimated to be completed on or by 2026. For this project, Grant Number HRSA 23-117 was initially filed by the Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County Office of Family Safety in partnership with the Davidson County Juvenile Court. Given construction time constraints; this project is pivoting from building out the 3rd floor of the Nashville Office of Family Safety to run the NAC pilot program toward the construction of the permanent NAC building which will be located on the Nashville Youth Campus for Empowerment (NYCE). The NYCE Campus will be a family-oriented, trauma-informed Juvenile Justice campus designed to support the intrinsic value of all members of the Davidson County Community. Plans to build the NYCE campus were approved by the Mayor of Nashville and Davidson County in 2023. Because of the scope and nature of this funding type for the Nashville Assessment Center, it is best led by Metro General Services. In 2017, The Joint Ad-Hoc Tennessee Ribbon Task Force on Juvenile Justice conducted a multi-agency, inter-branch review of Tennessee’s juvenile justice system. This process was data driven by national research and input from a diverse array of juvenile justice experts and stakeholders across Tennessee. As a result, the Task Force requested for jurisdictions to create a structured system that standardized diversion of lower-level youth from the juvenile justice system, while simultaneously enhancing youth and family access to services and support. A study published in 2018 by the Brookings Institution noted that families residing in the 37208 Davidson County zip code had a higher rate of incarceration than that of any other in the United States. The study also provided data that 42% of children living in this zip code are living in poverty. Research shows that communities with high crime, incarceration and poverty create extreme health hardships for youth and barriers for successful futures with a greater chance at involvement in violent criminal offenses and becoming victims of crime. According to a study conducted by E. Cauffman et al, youth who were formally processed during adolescence were more likely to be re-arrested, more likely to be incarcerated, engaged in more violence, reported a greater affiliation with delinquent peers, reported lower school enrollment, were less likely to graduate high school within 5 years, reported less ability to suppress aggression, and had lower perceptions of opportunities than informally processed youth. These results have important implications for juvenile justice policy by indicating that formally processing youth not only is costly, but it can reduce public safety and reduce the adolescent’s later potential contributions to society. The Nashville Assessment Center will provide therapeutic pre-charge diversion services that will address low-level misdemeanor and status youth offenses. The NAC aims to divert non-detainable youth under the age of eighteen, engaging in low-level misdemeanors or status offenses from being booked and released from Juvenile Detention without crisis management and other supportive services. Youth diverted from Juvenile Court processing to the NAC will include, but are not limited, to welfare placement, runaway, beyond control of parent, drug and alcohol use/abuse, outcry of abuse, family discord, and low-level criminal charges. The NAC will 1) improve procedures to provide for crisis management, physical care, and mental health resources to youth and their families in crisis, 2) .... See full document in the attachments.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).