[Federal Register: June 24, 2003 (Volume 68, Number 121)]
[Notices]
[Page 37517-37519]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr24jn03-91]
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DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
National Institute of Corrections
Solicitation for a Cooperative Agreement--Evaluation of the NIC
Institutional Culture Initiative
AGENCY: National Institute of Corrections, Department of Justice.
ACTION: Solicitation for a cooperative agreement.
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SUMMARY: The Department of Justice (DOJ), National Institute of
Corrections (NIC) announces the availability of funds in FY2003 for a
cooperative agreement to develop and implement an evaluation design to
assess the effectiveness of the National Institute of Corrections
Institutional Culture Initiative (ICI). The ICI includes a prison
culture assessment instrument as well as a protocol for assessing
prison culture. The ICI also includes the following projects: Strategic
Planning, Management and Response; and Leading and Sustaining Change as
well as a wide spectrum of additional interventions which will be
provided through NIC under the heading of Intensive Technical
Assistance.
A Cooperative Agreement is a form of assistance relationship where
the National Institute of Corrections is substantially involved during
the performance of the award. An award will be made to an organization
that will, in collaboration with the Institute, design and implement an
evaluation process to determine if the projects in NIC's ICI have
positively impacted the culture of the prisons in the project.
DATES: Application must be received by 4 p.m. on Wednesday, July 23,
2003.
ADDRESSES: Mailed applications must be sent to: Director, National
Institute of Corrections, 320 First Street, NW., Room 5007, Washington,
DC 20534. Applicants are encouraged to use Federal Express, UPS, or
similar service to ensure delivery by the due date as mail at NIC is
still being delayed due to decontamination procedures.
Hand delivered applications should be brought to 500 First Street,
NW., Washington, DC 20534. At the front desk, call (202)307-3106,
extension 0 for pickup. Faxes or e-mailed applications will not be
accepted.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: A copy of this announcement and the
required application forms can be downloaded from the NIC Web site at
www.nicic.org. Hard copies of the announcement can be obtained by
calling Rita Rippetoe at 1-800-995-6423, extension 44222 or e-mail:
rrippetoe@bop.gov. Additionally, you may request packets of information
on Institutional Culture Assessment Protocol and the Organizational
Culture Assessment Instrument; Strategic Planning, Management and
Response; and Leading and Sustaining Change from Sharon Floyd, 320
First Street, NW., Room 5007, Washington, DC 20534. At your discretion
you may purchase the Cameron and Quinn book cited in this Request for
Proposal (RFP) through Prentice Hall.
All technical or programmatic questions concerning this
announcement should be directed to Randy Corcoran, Correctional Program
Specialist, National Institute of Corrections. He can be reached by
calling 1-800-995-6423, extension 40058 or by e-mail at
tcorcoran@bop.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Background: Over the last several years, the
NIC Prisons Division has responded to requests from prisons for
assistance in addressing problems of staff sexual misconduct, excessive
violence, high staff turnover rates and other types of problems. NIC's
approach to assisting agencies with these problems has included on-site
technical assistance, training programs and dissemination of
information. Throughout the extensive work with institutions in
addressing these problems, consistent themes from correctional staff
and the offender population emerged, underscoring the importance of the
institutional environment. Staff and inmate relations, consistent and
fair supervisors, well trained staff, and strong institutional and
agency leadership teams are some of the components critical to a
healthy environment as highlighted by these projects. Other work done
at NIC in the area of mission change of institutions and in identifying
the challenges of keeping an effective workforce have also provided
background for NIC's interest in institutional culture. The
reoccurrence of many of these problems after traditional interventions
has prompted NIC to examine more thoroughly the underlying causes of
the presenting problems.
Through a cooperative agreement, NIC developed an instrument and
protocol for assessing organizational culture in prisons. The
assessment instrument originated from the works of Kim S. Cameron and
Robert E. Quinn in their book Diagnosing and Changing Organizational
Culture which they based on the competing values framework. The
instrument resulting from their work published in 1999 is called the
Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument (OCAI). The OCAI was
modified, with their approval, to be applied in prisons and is called
the Organizational Culture Assessment Instrument-Prisons (OCAI-P). The
protocol and instrument have been applied in 12 prisons. NIC has
concurrently been working on the development of intervention strategies
intended to assist prisons in changing their cultures following the
application of OCAI-P and Institutional Culture Assessment Protocol
under the direction of NIC's existing Cooperative Agreement vendor.
The three main intervention strategies being planned for
utilization are: Strategic Planning, Management and Response; Leading
and Sustaining Change and Intensive Technical Assistance which will
provide a wide spectrum of additional interventions. The interventions
strategies are being developed and are generally described below.
1. Strategic Planning, Management and Response: A cooperative
agreement was awarded in September 2002 to review Strategic Planning
models being used by state departments of corrections and other public
sector agencies and to select one Strategic Planning model that would
be of greatest benefit to state departments of corrections and state
prisons. The selected model, which is 50% complete, will be fully
developed with all relevant materials that would be required for
implementation in an operating correctional agency by the fall of 2003.
A supplement to this cooperative agreement will test the model as well
as develop and conduct a training program. In the training program
twelve correctional professionals will learn how to facilitate use of
the model in selected sites to improve prison culture.
2. Leading and Sustaining Change: This cooperative agreement (the
RFP will be announced in the Federal Register and on NIC's Web site
shortly)
[[Page 37518]]
will provide for the implementation of a Change Leadership
developmental process. This process will prepare/train the wardens and
other correctional leaders who will be instrumental in changing the
culture of the prisons participating in this initiative. In addition,
it will provide for professional Change Advisors who will work with the
wardens and other correctional leaders to determine the various
strategies which will be implemented to effectively change the culture
of the prison. The process will also provide options for assessing an
institution's Readiness for Change and provide documentation of the
stages of change for all the institutions. A final document summarizing
``Lessons Learned'' about changing the culture of a state prison will
be produced.
3. Intensive Technical Assistance: This intervention category may
cover a wide spectrum of assistance to prisons following an
Institutional Culture Assessment. This assistance can take the form of
training or consultation and may cover topics such as: management
training, supervisor training as well as training in communications,
diversity, sexual misconduct and use of force.
Purpose: To design and implement an evaluation process to determine
if the projects comprising the NIC Institutional Culture Initiative
have positively impacted the culture of the prisons in the project.
Scope of Project: 1. Develop an evaluation design which will
determine whether the following projects positively impacted the
culture of the prisons involved in the project: Institutional Culture
Assessment, Leading and Sustaining Change, Strategic Planning and
Response, and intensive technical assistance. The evaluation design
should clearly identify all information/data/processes which need to be
implemented at the beginning of each project in order to ultimately
assess the project outcomes.
2. Identify or develop all criteria, materials and instruments
which will be utilized in the evaluation of each project.
3. Discuss and defend the final decision regarding whether
individual projects will need individual evaluation tools or whether
common evaluation criteria/tools will be used on all the projects.
Regardless of the decision, address how all of the projects will relate
to the final outcome.
4. Discuss the feasibility of determining the impact individual
projects have on any institutional culture changes (for example, does
having the warden and executive staff trained in Change Leadership
contribute most significantly to changing the culture or are all
interventions too integrated to isolate individual project
contributions to the change in prison culture).
5. Implement all aspects of the evaluation design on all projects
and prison sites in the Institutional Culture initiative. Address how
to implement the evaluation design in the projects which have been in
progress for one or more years.
6. Document the research design and data/information which is
obtained in order to evaluate whether there has been a positive impact
on the prison culture. Provide a Final Report and Executive Summary of
the work completed in this phase of the evaluation project.
Specific Requirements: 1. The awardee is required to become
familiar with the materials, history, goals and results to date of
NIC's work in the entire Institutional Culture Initiative to include
all assessment and intervention efforts.
2. An assessment of the prison culture in eight (8) correctional
facilities was completed in 2002-2003, using the Organizational Culture
Assessment Instrument--Prisons (OCAI-P). Four (4) additional prisons
will receive assessments within the next few months. A professional
Change Advisor/consultant will begin working with the wardens of these
prisons to change the prison culture in September 2003. The awardee of
this evaluation cooperative agreement will need to be prepared to
identify and collect any baseline information which will be necessary
for the successful evaluation of these projects and prisons.
3. The Institutional Culture Assessment information (collected by a
separate vendor) for each prison in the Institutional Culture
Initiative will be made available to the awardee for the purposes of
evaluating the impact of the projects. The applicant is encouraged to
use this extensive information in the evaluation design. A modified
version of the Assessment Protocol may be proposed as a means of
measuring the impact of all the work done to change the culture or
another means of measuring the impact may be proposed.
4. The successful applicant will propose a project approach that
will ensure accomplishment of each of the stated objectives of this
project. The applicant will ensure that the project team is comprised
of persons with technical expertise in the area of research and
evaluation methods as well as persons with familiarity with the
correctional environment.
5. With satisfactory performance, it is assumed that there will be
some additional funds each year for the awardee to collect information
which will be necessary for the final impact evaluation. At that point
in time, the awardee will be asked to provide a Final Report with an
Executive Summary. They will also be asked to produce a camera-ready
monograph on Lessons Learned about changing prison culture. Funds will
be provided in subsequent years and should not be requested in the
current application. The purpose of adding this information is to
inform the applicant regarding the expected outputs to assure the
research design addresses all requirements.
6. Since the goal of the Institutional Culture initiative is to
change the culture (not the climate) of a prison, there is the
expectation that various interventions (strategic planing, intensive
TA, etc.) may be utilized and may extend over a period of several
years. The applicant should reflect the possibly longer time frame
which will be required to measure the impact of the interventions in
the evaluation design.
7. The selected applicant will be required to attend a preliminary
meeting for the purpose of getting an overview of the current NIC work
in the Institutional Culture Initiative as well as a refinement of the
project work plan. The applicant is also required to attend two (2)
coordinating meetings each year with all the other project staff from
the ICI.
8. Coordinate with the NIC project manager extensively and
routinely throughout the length of the project. The person designated
as project director is required to be the person who will manage the
project on a day-to-day basis and who has full decision-making
authority to work with the NIC project manager. This person must have
enough time dedicated to the project to assure they are available to
direct day to day activities of the project and to be available for
collaboration with the NIC project manager. Applicants may use whatever
position titles they wish with other project staff, but the position of
project director must be as described in this paragraph.
9. Applicants should identify in the proposal specific strategies
for assuring a collaborative effort between their project team and NIC.
Application Requirements: Applications must be submitted using OMB
Standard Form 424, Federal Assistance and attachments. (Copies can be
downloaded from the NIC Web site at www.nicic.org. The applications
should be concisely written, typed double spaced and referenced to the
project by the ``NIC Application
[[Page 37519]]
Number'' and Title referenced in this announcement.
Submit an original and five copies. The original should have the
applicant's signature in blue ink. A cover letter must identify the
responsible audit agency for the applicant's financial accounts.
The narrative portion of this cooperative agreement application
should include, at a minimum.
1. A brief paragraph that indicates the applicant's understanding
of the purpose of this cooperative agreement;
2. One or more paragraphs to detail the applicants understanding of
Impact Evaluation;
3. A brief paragraph that summarizes the project goals and
objectives;
4. A clear description of the methodology that will be used to
complete the project and achieve its goals;
5. A clearly developed and detailed Project Plan which demonstrates
how the various goals and objectives of the project will be achieved
through its various activities so as to produce the required results;
6. A chart of measurable project milestones and time lines for the
completion of each milestone;
7. A description of the staffing plan for the project, including
the role of each project staff, the time commitment for each, the
relationship among the staff (who reports to whom), and a signed
statement from individual staff that they will be available to work on
this project;
8. A description of the qualifications of the applicant
organization and documentation of each project staff's knowledge,
skills and abilities to carry out their assigned project
responsibilities;
9. A budget that details all costs for the project, shows
consideration for all contingencies for this project, and notes a
commitment to work within the budget proposed (budget should be divided
into object class categories as shown on application Standard Form
424A). A budget narrative must be included which explains how all costs
were determined.
The project must be completed within one year of its award date.
Authority: Public Law 93-415.
Funds Available: The award will be limited to a maximum of
$150,000.00 (direct and indirect costs). Funds may be used only for the
activities that are linked to the desired outcome of the project. No
funds are transferred to state or local governments. Additional funding
will be requested in subsequent years. Future award decisions will be
based upon satisfactory performance of the awarded and upon the
availability of funding.
This project will be a collaborative venture with the NIC Prisons
Divisions.
Eligibility of Applicants: An eligible applicant in any state or
general unit of local government, private agency, educational
institution, or organization, individual or team with expertise in the
described areas.
Review considerations: Applications received under this
announcement will be subject to a 3 to 5 person NIC Peer Review
Process. One of the reviewers will be from Bureau of Prisons staff. No
companies, project staff or consultants who are working on any of the
projects within the Institutional Culture Initiative as identified in
the RFP, may participate in the evaluation which will be proposed in
response to this RFP. The purpose for this restriction is to assure
that the evaluation team is totally separate from any of the projects
which will be evaluated.
Numbers of Awards: 1.
NIC Application Number: 03P23. This number should appear as a
reference line in the cover letter, in box 11 of Standard Form 424, and
outside of the envelope in which the application is sent.
Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number: 16.602.
Executive Order 12372: This project is not subject to the
provisions of Executive Order 12372.
This announcement is expected to be awarded by August 27, 2003.
Morris L. Thigpen,
Director, National Institute of Corrections.
[FR Doc. 03-15882 Filed 6-23-03; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4410-36-M