Grants to California Family Courts to Facilitate Non-Custodial Visitation

Access to Visitation Grant Program

Agency

State

GrantWatch ID#

146106

Funding Source

Judicial Council of California
Center for Families, Children and the Courts (CFCC)

Geographic Focus

USA: California

Important Dates

Deadline: 11/13/23 5:00 PM Receipt

Grant Description

Grants to California superior courts to expand or supplement programs that benefit parents who do not have custody of their children. Funding is intended to establish and administer programs that support and facilitate noncustodial parent access to and visitation with their children. The grant may be used to provide services for low-income families throughout the state.

The Access to Visitation Grant Program seeks to ensure accessible and available professional supervised visitation services statewide for low-income families with children whose custody and visitation issues are before the family courts.

The use of the funds in California is limited by state statute to three types of programs:

Supervised visitation and exchange services;
Education about protecting children during family disruption; and
Group counseling services for parents and children

The recipients of the proposed services should be low-income, separated, separating, divorced, or unmarried parents and their children who are involved in custody and visitation proceedings under the Family Code. Grant funds can only be used to serve noncustodial parents.

The state goals for California’s Access to Visitation Grant Program are to enable parents and children to participate in supervised visitation, education, and group counseling programs—irrespective of the parent’s marital status and whether the parties are currently living separately—and to promote and encourage healthy relationships between noncustodial parents and their children while ensuring the children’s health, safety, and welfare.

Recipient

Additional Eligibility Criteria

Under California’s Access to Visitation Grant Program, grant funding is awarded to the family law division of the superior courts. Applicants are strongly encouraged to involve multiple courts and counties in their proposed programs and to designate one court as the lead or administering court. While the superior courts may contract with local community-based nonprofit agencies to provide direct services on behalf of the court, contract agreements are made only with the designated superior court.

The family law divisions of the superior courts are required to administer the programs. The applicant court acts as the designated lead agency for the grant and is responsible for the administration and coordination of the project, serving as the primary liaison with Judicial Council program staff for the Access to Visitation Grant Program. Any other nonprofit agencies desiring to participate must do so as part of the court’s Access to Visitation Grant application.

Ineligible

Grant funds may be used to expand or augment existing programs but funds may not be used to supplant existing funding for those programs.

Funds for this grant may not be used to provide services in dependency cases or as part of any dependency proceedings, or for Tribes or Tribal Courts, or to provide off-site or in-home supervised visitation services.

Pre-Proposal Conference

Judicial Council program staff will offer two grant applicant webinars for interested applicants. Courts and interested community-based justice partners will have an opportunity to ask questions regarding the application and grant requirements. Participants may attend both webinar session dates and select just one to attend.

The webinars will take place on September 21 and October 5, 2023.

Register here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2023grantapplicationworkshops

Pre-Application Information

Timeline:
- September 2023: Release of grant application
- Sept. 20 and Oct. 4: Deadline for Questions for Grant Applicant Webinars
- Sept. 21 and October 5, 2023: Grant Applicant Webinars
- November 13, 2023: Proposals/grant applications must be received through Submittable by 5:00 p.m.
- November - December 2023: Review, selection, and recommendation of grant awards
- December 2023: Family and Juvenile Law Committee Meeting
- January 2024: Drafting and preparation of Judicial Council report
- March 2024: Judicial Council Meeting and notification of grant awards
- March 2024: Request to submit revised court/subcontractor budgets for contract agreements for the fiscal year 2024–2025 funding period
- April 1, 2024: The grant period begins

Grant recipients will be required to provide a 20 percent (non-federal) matching requirement.

Additional Funding Information

Estimated Total Program Funding:

$655,000

Estimated Size of Grant

Grant funding amounts are divided into three categories: a maximum of $45,000, a maximum of $60,000, and a maximum of $100,000.

Two demographic factors are used to determine which of the three funding
categories would apply to a given court: (1) the number of single-parent households in the county, from the U.S. Census data; and (2) the number of individuals with income below the poverty level in the county, per U.S. Census data.

Term of Contract

Subject to the availability of federal funding, the superior courts selected by the Judicial Council for grant funding will receive funding for three years commencing April 1, 2024, through March 31, 2027. The contract agreements between the Judicial Council and the superior courts will be written as single-year contract agreements renewable subject to available funds.

Contact Information

Apply online: https://judicialcouncilofcalifornia.submittable.com/submit/f859a1ec-e5d4-44f8-8f28-ccb813cbe040/access-to-visitation-grant-program-fy-2024-25-through-2026-27

Please send questions or inquiries about the RFP grant application process or the grant program to Shelly La Botte at shelly.labotte@jud.ca.gov or call 916-643-7065.

Grants to California Family Courts to Facilitate Non-Custodial Visitation

Access to Visitation Grant Program

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