Community-Based Outreach and Advocacy Services

The Vendor is required to provide community-based outreach and advocacy services on the County.
- Services are for hard-to-reach at-risk youth and their families to address immediate and long-term needs through the provision of case management, integration of social services, and referral for services.
- The overall goal is to prevent and mitigate negative youth outcomes by connecting youth and their family to services that prevent youth violence, address risk factors, build natural support, and promote resilience.
- Communities are social units with vast characteristics that impact people’s lives through shared experiences, values and norms, shape behavior, contribute to identity formation, and prompt people how to navigate life.
- Communities that are under-resourced, remote, or socially-economically deprived may have significant negative impacts on youth development, physical, mental, and overall well-being.
- In the context of youth delinquency, we know that the pathway into offending tends to be multi-layered with youth having a variety of lived experiences across the individual, family, social, and environmental domains.
- These at-risk (or “vulnerable”) youth and families face increased barriers to accessing services due to social and economic factors such as culture (including stigma, language, values), income, educational attainment, lack of awareness, and poor or scarce resources in their community or neighborhood.
- Vulnerable populations include individuals who are hard-to-reach or disengaged/resistant and are often not formally identified and connected to services.
- Program Design for Effective Practices
•    The Applicant shall design outreach and advocacy services, informed through community assessment. 
•    Engage community members to actively participate in identifying and prioritizing needs and services offered to ensure the appropriateness of services for the target population. 
•    Include data or input gathered from the target population and other community-based organizations to justify the needs for the proposed geographical location(s). 
•    This may include rates regarding social-economic indicators such as illegal substance usage, juvenile violence prevention, delinquency, teen pregnancy, and other risk behaviors prevalent for youth of the identified community or geographical area proposed to serve. 
•    Applicants shall assess the community’s readiness for the proposed services, including identifying and justifying the need for services.
•    Provide evidence-based, trauma-informed practice in service delivery that effectively assists youth to successfully engage in services and achieve short and long-term outcomes. 
•    When evidence-based practice is not available, best practice approaches shall be used. 
•    Trauma-informed practices recognize the presence of trauma symptoms and acknowledge the effect and role trauma may play in a person’s life. 
•    Principles of trauma-informed care include creating a physical and emotionally safe environment, establishing trust and boundaries, supporting youth to be autonomous, and encouraging them to make choices. 
•    Principles support creating collaborative relationships and participation opportunities, and using a strengths and empowerment-focused perspective to promote their resilience. 
•    The Applicant shall ensure the physical and emotional environment is a youth-centered, welcoming place, where both youth and staff feel safe.
- Outreach. 
•    Provide outreach services that will increase service access, decrease barriers, and provide benefits and opportunities to the target population.
•    Outreach services include providing information to increase knowledge or skill and advocacy on behalf of the youth and family. 
•    Applicant shall describe the types of strategies it will utilize to reach and connect with youth and families including, but not limited to:
•    Flexible schedules (e.g., afternoons, evenings, weekends).
•    Non-traditional settings (e.g., home, park, beach).
•    Identifying cultural barriers and describe how services will be culturally sensitive.
•    Connecting with other agencies or individuals who have knowledge and access to proposed population.
•    Program marketing, identifying how the services will become visible to the target population and community partners that may serve as referral sources or referral for services.
•    Prevention and educational platforms for community youth violence.
•    Promoting positive peer relationships and strengthening family relationships.
- Case Management. 
•    Provide case management activities that are collaborative and have a family-driven approach. 
•    The Applicant shall implement a case management system that includes, but is not limited to, individual screening and assessment, crisis stabilization, determination of youth’s functioning, identification of service needs, development of individualized service goals, service coordination, monitoring progress of goals, and revision of service plans, as appropriate.
- Case Closure. 
•    The length of services shall be up to 18 months but may vary and be determined according to youth needs, duration of interventions and services, on-going needs, and other factors determined on a case-by-case basis.