(430 ILCS 69/35-30)

Sec. 35-30. Integrated youth services.

(a) Subject to appropriation, for municipalities with 1,000,000 or more residents, the Office of Firearm Violence Prevention shall make grants to youth development organizations for evidence-based youth programming, including, but not limited to, after-school and summer programming. Evidence-based youth development programs shall provide services to teens that increase their school attendance and school performance and to teens or young adults that reduce involvement in the criminal and juvenile justice systems, develop employment and life skills, and develop nonacademic interests that build social emotional persistence and intelligence.

(b) The Office of Firearm Violence Prevention shall identify municipal blocks where more than 35% of all fatal and nonfatal firearm-shot incidents take place and focus youth development service grants to residents of these identified blocks in the designated eligible service areas. The Department of Human Services shall prioritize funding to youth development service programs that serve the following teens before expanding services to the broader community:

(1) criminal and juvenile justice-involved youth;

(2) students who are attending or have attended option schools;

(3) family members of individuals working with violence prevention organizations; and

(4) youth living on the blocks where more than 35% of the violence takes place in a neighborhood.

(c) Each program participant enrolled in a youth development program under this Act, when possible and appropriate, shall receive an individualized needs assessment to determine if the participant requires intensive youth services as provided for in Section 35-35 of this Act. The needs assessment should be the best available instrument that considers the physical and mental condition of each youth based on the youth's family ties, financial resources, past substance use, criminal justice involvement, and trauma related to chronic exposure to firearm violence behavioral health assessment to determine the participant's broader support and mental health needs. The Office of Firearm Violence Prevention shall determine best practices for referring program participants who are at the highest risk of violence and justice involvement to be referred to a high-risk youth intervention program established in Section 35-35.

(d) Youth development prevention program participants shall receive services designed to empower participants with the social and emotional skills necessary to forge paths of healthy development and disengagement from high-risk behaviors. Within the context of engaging social, physical, and personal development activities, participants should build resilience and the skills associated with healthy social, emotional, and identity development.

(e) Youth development providers shall develop the following expertise in the geographic areas they cover:

(1) Knowledge of the teens and their social organization in the blocks they are designated to serve.

(2) Youth development organizations receiving grants under this Act shall be required to coordinate services with other youth development organizations in their neighborhood by sharing lessons learned in monthly meetings.

(3) (Blank).

(4) Meeting on an emergency basis when conflicts related to program participants that need immediate attention and resolution arise.

(5) Sharing knowledge and strategies of the neighborhood violence dynamic in monthly meetings with local violence prevention organizations receiving grants under this Act.

(6) Selecting an approved technical assistance and training service provider to receive agreed upon services.

(f) The Illinois Office of Firearm Violence Prevention shall select, when possible and appropriate, no fewer than 2 and no more than 3 approved technical assistance and training providers to deliver technical assistance and training to the youth development organizations that request to receive approved technical assistance and training. Youth development organizations must use an approved technical assistance and training provider and can choose among approved technical assistance providers as long as the technical assistance provider has the capacity to effectively serve the youth development organizations that have selected them. The Department shall make best efforts to accommodate second choices of youth development organizations when the youth development organization's violence prevention first choice does not have capacity to provide technical assistance.

(g) Approved technical assistance and training providers may:

(1) provide training to youth development workers on how to perform outreach services;

(2) provide management training on how to manage youth development workers;

(3) provide training and assistance on how to develop memorandum of understanding for referral services or create approved provider lists for these referral services, or both;

(4) share lessons learned among youth development service providers in their network; and

(5) provide technical assistance and training on human resources, grants management, capacity building, and fiscal management strategies.

(h) Approved technical assistance and training providers shall:

(1) provide additional services identified as necessary by the Office of Firearm Violence Prevention and youth development service providers in their network; and

(2) receive an annual base grant of up to $250,000 plus negotiated service rates to provide group and individualized services to participating youth development service organizations.

(i) (Blank).

(j) The Office of Firearm Violence Prevention shall issue youth development services grants, when possible and appropriate, to no fewer than 4 youth services organizations in each of the eligible service areas and no more than 8 organizations. When possible, the Office of Firearm Violence Prevention shall work, subject to eligible applications received, to ensure that grant resources are equitably distributed across eligible service areas. The Office of Firearm Violence Prevention may establish award ranges to ensure grants will have the potential to reduce violence in each neighborhood.

(k) No youth development organization can serve more than 3 eligible service areas unless the Office of Firearm Violence Prevention is unable to identify youth development organizations to provide adequate coverage.

(l) No approved technical assistance and training provider shall provide youth development services in any neighborhood under this Act.

(Source: P.A. 102-16, eff. 6-17-21; 102-679, eff. 12-10-21; 103-8, eff. 6-7-23.)