Opportunity Overview
The Kansas Department of Corrections (KDOC) is accepting rolling applications for the Community Programs for Juvenile Justice Grant, which supports evidence-based and promising-practice programs serving Kansas youth who are juvenile offenders, youth experiencing behavioral-health crisis and their families, and children identified through a risk-and-needs assessment as needing services under Kansas law.
Funding and Deadline
Awards are available up to $250,000, contingent on available funds, for a 12-month award period. There is no matching requirement. KDOC accepts rolling submissions on March 1, June 1, September 1 and December 1, each at 11:59 PM Central Time. The next currently open submission deadline is December 1, 2026 at 11:59 PM Central Time.
Eligible Applicants and Program Focus
Eligible applicants include community-based agencies, government agencies and service providers. Child-welfare case-management providers are not eligible. Funded projects must target at least one specified juvenile-justice priority area and must implement an evidence-based practice, or a promising practice tied to a researcher with identified data points. The funding is intended as a one-time investment to initiate a needed program in the community.
Behavioral Health and Youth Relevance
The RFA expressly includes youth and families experiencing a behavioral-health crisis, including non-life-threatening mental-health and substance-use concerns. The application also includes program categories such as substance abuse, school attendance, life skills, mentorship, family relationships, homeless youth, workforce development and other community-based interventions.
Required Application Components
The application checklist requires an organizational chart, referral form, weekly program schedule, letters of support and/or memoranda of understanding, a budget workbook, and the signed KDOC grant conditions/agreement signature page. Applicants must maintain an adequate accounting system and separately track grant funds. Indirect costs are allowed up to 10% of the total budget.
Atlas Analysis
Atlas Opportunity Score: 88/100. N9+ Fit: 10/100 conditional. This is a strong Kansas behavioral-health and youth-services opportunity, particularly for community mental-health providers and youth-serving organizations. The current RFA does not establish connected clinical-examination technology as a program requirement or specifically allowable cost, so N9+ should not be force-fit. Any technology component would need to be demonstrably necessary to an eligible evidence-based youth program and independently validated against the final budget rules.
Direct Vendor Review
Dr. Miltie should not be treated as a direct applicant without verified qualification as an eligible Kansas community-based agency, government agency or service provider delivering the required juvenile-justice program. Applicant-partner outreach is the appropriate default path.
Next Action
Prioritize Kansas community mental-health centers, behavioral-health providers, youth-service nonprofits and qualifying government agencies that already serve justice-involved youth or youth in behavioral-health crisis. Before outreach, verify the organization is not an ineligible child-welfare case-management provider, confirm the recipient in Zoho CRM, check Email Opt-Out and actual sent history, and clear the approved final-render email inspection gate.
Official source: Kansas Department of Corrections — Available Grant Opportunities. The current FY2027 application packet linked from that page controls the funding ceiling, eligibility, required attachments and rolling submission schedule.