The Board met on September 5, 2014, to make decisions on quarterly grant applications and awarded a total of 15 grants. Two (2) Strategic Initiatives Grants (SIG) were approved: 1) support for the National Center for State Courts (NCSC) to establish a national call center that will assist state courts in providing Virtual Remote Interpreting (VRI) services. The project will result in a national VRI capability available to all state courts that will expand access and reduce costs; and 2) assistance for a partnership between the Center for Public Policy Studies (CPPS) and the NCSC to address the impact of unaccompanied immigrant children in the state courts. CPPS and NCSC will develop a step-by-step action guide, training, and webinar on this critical issue.
Two (2) Project Grants were approved: support to the National Guardianship Network’s (NGN) efforts to continue reforming adult guardianship practice in the state courts through its Working Interdisciplinary of Guardian Stakeholders (WINGS) initiative; and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) to hold a national courts and the military summit that will convene key stakeholders at the intersection of military justice and juvenile and family courts to develop a national agenda to improve the coordination of services for service members, veterans, and their families.
Eight (8) Technical Assistance (TA) Grants were approved, including: strategic planning projects for the 10th Judicial Circuit Court of Michigan and the 4th Judicial District Court of Louisiana; a municipal and traffic court consolidation project for the Orleans Parish, Louisiana Municipal Court; case management system planning and assessment projects for the Missouri Office of the State Courts Administrator and the Superior Court of the U.S. Virgin Islands; a caseflow and calendaring management review of the Superior Court of Santa Barbara County, California; personnel and procedures review for the 4th Judicial District Court of Nebraska; and a courthouse security review and assessment for the Vermont Judiciary.
Three (3) Curriculum Adaptation & Training (CAT) Grants were approved, including: support for the 2015 Nebraska Children’s Summit; assistance to American University for a project to improve access to justice for immigrant crime victims through judicial education; and judicial education on human trafficking issues, including a focus on gangs, for the National Association of Women Judges (NAWJ).