Curriculum development for MET, ECCP, and ICMS training project

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is soliciting proposals from organizations, groups, partnerships of organization and groups, or individuals to enter into a cooperative agreement for a 12 month project period to develop curricula, pilot them, and participate in the planning for the delivery of three closely related training programs. These training programs, together with other training components being developed separately, will ultimately be delivered at the beginning of 2013 as part of the training correctional staff and treatment providers will receive during the Second Chance Act/Demonstration Field Experiment (SCA/DFE). This project is a joint effort being carried out by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), and NIC. To successfully integrate the entire project, these three programs will be developed together and piloted during the first 6 months of this award. Also during this six month period and for the remainder of the project, the awardee will participate in the planning for the delivery of each training component to staff and treatment providers at the DFE sites. The three training curricula to be developed under this award are as follows; Training #1 The first training to be developed will be Effective Core Correctional Practices (ECCP), which will be based on similar programs developed in recent years (such as STICS, EPICS, STARR and the like). This competency-based curriculum will be used to train line level staff using an integrated case management approach within a desistance framework in working with parolees. Training #2 The second training will focus on the basics of Integrated Case Management and Supervision (ICMS), with an additional focus on supervision officers working with community service providers to coordinate and track services received by parolees. Training #3 The third training will be on the use of Motivational Enhancement Therapy (MET) by treatment providers working with parolees. This revised MET curriculum will be an adaptation of the traditional MET’s emphasis on substance abuse to include a broader focus on criminal thinking and behavior. The SCA/DFE will be a multi-year effort and awardees under this solicitation will also be eligible to continue to participate in the project with additional funding to be awarded in 2013. Tasks under that future award will include training delivery, quality assurance, follow-up coaching, refresher training, monitoring the fidelity of the training, and other technical assistance to the SCA/DFE sites. Because the selection of the SCA/DFE sites is ongoing, the details of these tasks will be defined as part of the planning process which will in turn inform the future work.