Slots: 1.
Deadlines
Internal Deadline: Contact RII.
LOI: N/A
External Deadline: All applications are due to be submitted and in receipt of a successful validation message in Grants.gov by 11:59 p.m. eastern time on May 23, 2023
Award Information
Award Type: Cooperative Agreement
Estimated Number of Awards: 1
Anticipated Award Amount: $100,000
Link to Award: https://nicic.gov/about-nic/funding-opportunities/cooperative-agreement-23pr16-womens-risk-and-need-assessment-wrna
Process for Limited Submissions
PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the Research Initiatives and Infrastructure (RII) Application Portal: https://rii.usc.edu/oor-portal/. Use the template provided here: RII Limited Submission Applicant Template
Materials to submit include:
- (1) Two-Page Proposal Summary (0.5” margins; single-spaced; font type: Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 2-page limit will be excluded from review. You must use the template linked above.
- (2) CV – (5 pages maximum)
Note: The portal requires information about the PIs in addition to department and contact information, including the 10-digit USC ID#, Gender, and Ethnicity. Please have this material prepared before beginning this application.
Purpose
This solicitation is to develop deliverables that will (1) inform interested agencies about the
development of and requirements for the implementation of the Women’s Risk and Need
Assessment (WRNA); (2) provide instruction to accepted project teams on the implementation and
ongoing application of the WRNA; and (3) support and provide coaching to agencies and teams on
the ongoing use of the WRNA.
Over a period of 10 years, the Women’s Risk and Need Assessment (WRNA) was developed based
on Canadian research that stressed the importance of assessing and addressing dynamic risk factors
and gender-responsive research and theory, including research suggesting that women’s pathways to
criminal legal involvement is different from men’s [ChesneyLind, 1997; Daly, 1992]. The research
also summarizes the gender-responsive tools that are available for managing and supervising women
in various correctional settings [Bloom, Owen, & Covington, 2003; Buell, Modley, & Van Voorhis,
2011; Covington, 1998, 2000].
The premise for the development of the WRNA was that tools currently in use generally over-classified (and on some occasions under-classified) women, and therefore inappropriately assigned
them to institutional placement or housing and did not match services and programs to their actual
risk and need. Further, services and programs were often not available, as there had been no accurate
determination for their need, an outcome based on tools that often overlooked issues more salient to
women. Therefore, the mandated completion of assessment and classification tools often became a
“paperwork” exercise, and ultimately the assessments were filed away and not used to guide
decision-making. Today, the WRNA, a tool that appropriately accounts for women’s risk and need,
has been applied nationally and internationally for assessment and case planning with women who
are at various points of involvement with the correctional system, from pretrial to community
supervision.
Typically, assessment and classification tools are applied to all men and women involved with the
criminal justice system for the purposes of risk assessment, case planning, and supervision. These
gender-neutral tools incorporate criminogenic risk factors well known to correctional practitioners,
often referred to as the central four and the big eight [Andrews, D.A., & Bonta, J. (2006), The
psychology of Criminal Conduct (4th ed.). Newark, NJ: LexisNexis]. What makes the WRNA
distinct from gender neutral risk and needs assessments is that it incorporates relevant criminogenic
risk factors. It was also constructed entirely based on samples of adult women, rather than a
percentage of women, that were then applied to both genders. What research and gender-responsive
practice with women has taught us is that “same is not equal,” and using the same processes
developed and applied primarily to men in the correctional system may have a differing effect on
and/or may “miss the mark” entirely with women. As a result, women experience a high rate of
violations and revocations for technical violations, rather than for new offenses, and they frequently
have challenges meeting mandated conditions of parole/probation due to areas of need that often
contribute to women’s risk. The WRNA includes items that are gender-neutral—have applicability
to men and women—and incorporates factors that have emerged during the construction and
validation of the WRNA to be unique to women or found to affect women differently than men.
The general purpose of assessment and classification tools is to assist case managers in decisionmaking that will enhance public safety, improve use of resources by matching people with services
and programs more efficiently, and reduce case planning bias in working with people involved with
the criminal justice system. While gender-neutral tools have been considered good enough in their
application to women, they miss issues that are central to women’s lives and may affect women’s
entry into and involvement with the criminal legal system in ways that are significantly different
from men’s.
This solicitation is to develop outreach methods or modalities to provide agencies with information
about the development, implementation, and application of the latest iteration of the WRNA, with
the objective of (1) engaging agencies interested in sharpening their focus on the risk and needs of
women in a correctional facility; (2) providing sufficient information for agencies to consider their
capacity to implement the WRNA; (3) providing training to 3 selected states with teams who intend
to implement the WRNA in their agency; and (4) providing follow up coaching to those same
agencies in the process of WRNA implementation.
Objectives
The awardee will:
- Meet with designated NIC staff to develop a work plan and timeline to meet each of the
deliverables to the satisfaction of NIC. - Ensure that the video and other outreach modalities provide information sufficient so that
viewers will have an understanding of the purpose, development, implementation
requirements, and application of the WRNA. This information will assist them in looking
internally at their resources and agency capacity and deciding whether to submit a team
application from their agency to be trained virtually in implementation of the WRNA. - Ensure the materials developed to provide training on the WRNA meet the needs of NIC and
the agency teams. - Ensure that the delivery of the WRNA training meets the needs of NIC and the agency
teams. - Ensure that the limited coaching (up to eight hours per team) meets the needs of NIC and the
selected agency teams receiving the support
Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.