OVC Human Trafficking Program Orientation

AUBREY LLOYD: Welcome everybody. Thank you so much for joining us today. You officially started that OVC All Anti-Trafficking Grantee Orientation. My name is Aubrey Lloyd. I am the director of OVC's Human Trafficking Collective, which is one of many TTA providers that helps support all of you. And we're excited to be here today to provide some support. 

But a quick welcome for everyone in the chat. We're saying hello, where we're calling from, our pronouns, and a favorite fall treat just to get us started today. 

We have lots of information, and so just one ground setting is that everything is being recorded today. You will get the recording, the PowerPoints, and any information and resources that we share. Thank you for joining us, and if you [need] any technical assistance, Jameel has already said hello in the chat, and his information is on the screen here, and also in the chat as well. He is able and willing to help support anything and any problems that you have with our technology today. So again, welcome.

Today's orientation will be offered in both live English and Spanish. To access the Spanish line, please click the interpretation button at the bottom of your screen to select between English and Spanish audio channels.

If you want to go back [really] quick, Vanessa is going to check in and make sure we all know how to hit that button. Go ahead, Vanessa, try again.

Alright, well we do have live interpretation that's available at the bottom of your screen, and Vanessa and her team is available on that channel as well. And again, all of the webinar recordings in both English and Spanish will be available.

So, lots of different ways to engage. You guys, again, if you needed a win for Tuesday, you're already doing that because we're engaging in the chat box today. So well done, and welcome. Again, this is the way that we engage. We're like, “Oh, thank you. I've needed that answer to that question.” Just to be able to share all of the fall treats that we are submitting in the chat and to say hello. That is the purpose for chat. 

The Q&A function we're going to talk about in just a moment for questions. We're also going to be using the application Mentimeter, or Menti. There's going to be a slide that comes up with a QR code. You can use your phone. You can enter the code. You can go directly to Menti.com. I'm going to go through that again, so no worries of trying to feverishly make notes. We're going to be good and we're going to repeat things. 

Q&A. This is the function if you need to ask a question. This is not a question of, “Aubrey, how can we start this, you know, this, cookbook to talk about our favorite poll treats?” That's not the function for Q&A. But to say, “I didn't, I missed where we were talking about that particular thing in the financial guide. Can you repeat that?” Or, “I have this question that just came up from our team.” That's where you're going to add that into Q&A. And the cool thing about Q&A is we can all see the question. And some of them are going to be live answered; we have several members of the Human Trafficking Division at OVC available to answer your questions in real time.

If there's a great question that comes up that we're like, “Oh, I need to better understand that question,” you can hit the thumbs up, which will upvote that for you as well. And again, we'll give you that reminder a few times in the chat and a couple times around today.

You guys are going to be getting a lot of information, so as we get started today, I want you guys to understand this, again, is recorded. There [are] several people on the line and that will be available after today to help you understand anything that still seems unclear. So, sit back and relax, and enjoy the experience of getting to know all of the fantastic new folks that we have as grantees.

Alright, so again, we're going to do Mentimeter. Lots of ways to participate. If you have your phone handy, go ahead and hit the QR code. You can also hit the link. Here's the code to enter [for] the website. It also was just added into the chat as well. 

You can use the link, you can go ahead and do the QR code, and the code we're entering is 1392 4720. And if you want to just watch and observe, and you're like, “I can't do Menti, Aubrey, it's Tuesday, I just can't do it.” It's also okay.

So, first question. Menti.com, 1392 4720. How many years [of] experience do you have working in the anti-trafficking build? Looks like 1 to 3 years is kind of our predominant space today. Four to six is like, “No, we're here too.” Appreciate you. 10-plus years. Love it.

Alright, great response, great participation. Thank you so much for joining. Twenty-seven years, yes, you own that. Absolutely, fantastic. Winning, winning, winning. Alright, so we have lots of new folks, but there's a great balance of people that have been doing this work for a while. I have a little bit over 20 years myself just working in victim services and this is my time of unlearning.

The code for today at Menti.com is 1392 4720, and it's at the top of the screen as well. Good job, Christina, just jumping right in and assisting. Look at this love. Love it, love it, love it.

All right, [a] couple more questions to get us grounded today.

How would you best describe your role? Complicated, manager, supervisor, mediator, grant administrator. Analyst, educator, case manager, leader, program manager, director, support. In multiple ways, right? Problem solver. Can you talk to me directly? Let's problem solve some things together. Love, love, love. Manager, administrator, attorney. Research, data analysis. Oh, love those things. Just speaking love languages on a Tuesday. I appreciate it.

Chief Program Officer, manager, in turn, welcome, welcome. Operations coordinator, couldn't do the stuff without y'all. Grants manager, lots of good folks, grants coordinator, executive director. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Program director firefighter? We are winning stuff today, y'all. I love it.

In the chat, we have director of finance, cat herder at all times. That's what happens when we do this for 27 years. Love, love, love. Mental health director, finance. Team lead. Love it. I love it, love it, love it. CFO, supervisor, caseworker, wearer of many hats. Absolutely. Love, love, love. Grant consultant trainer, director, coordinator. 

Just a piece to add here is that we just all do this work together, and we need all of us to be able to do it well. So—role clarifier, absolutely. And then we will re-clarify the role on Wednesday. Alright, fantastic. Great. Thanks again for participating. Learner support. Fantastic. Making sure we get it together. 

What are you most excited about in getting the started on this grant? And again, Menti.com. The code is 1392 4720. If you’re just joining, we also have live English and Spanish. If you prefer Spanish, you can go ahead and hit that button below, [at] the bottom of your screen.

What are you most excited about? Continuing the work. Learning, filling a gap. Increasing capacity, sustainability, growth, training. This is just fun to watch, right? And the impact that you guys are all having across the country in different territories. Making a positive impact, collaborating, hope, learning. All the new possibilities that grants will open for our clients. Yes. You have a good day. I put that into an accent, [be]cause that's where I'm at on Tuesday. 

Understanding our mission, expansion, providing services, making a positive impact, new funding, serving survivors. Lots of increasing, lots of growth. This is the space we need to be at the end of 2023. Breaking down barriers, okay. Yes, I love that everything is moving, except the learning right in the middle. And for me, being in this work, this has been my season of unlearning and challenging what I really do know, what I could know even better. 

Hope, impact, collaboration. Those are kind of centering us today. Fantastic. And you guys will also get these results from our Menti things today as well. Thanks for participating. 

Alright, so as we're getting started, we're kind of learning where we are. I'm going to have Darian kick us off. Thanks so much, and, Darian.

DARIAN HANRAHAN: Thanks, Aubrey. Hi, everyone. My name is Darian Hanrahan and I am a Victim Justice Program Specialist in OVC's Human Trafficking Division. We are so pleased that you are joining us today for our human trafficking new grantee orientation. I'm already really thrilled to see so many participants and such early engagement in the chat and in Menti.

Before we begin, I just thought it would be helpful to have a slide with all of the OVC Human Trafficking Division staff members. In the interest of not angering the tech gods, we are going to say off camera. But here are staff members, and today on our call, I'm going to be joined by my colleague Tiffany Graham, Natalia Aguirre, and Nyeri Richards, who are going to be—and Cindy Erich—who are going to be presenting portions of the webinar today. A number of other staff members are also going to be assisting with answering questions in the chat.

So now I'm going to go ahead and pass things to Natalia to kick us off.

NATALIA AGUIRRE: Great. Thanks so much, Darian. Hi, everyone. As Darian sad, my name is Natalia Aguirre and I'm going to be walking you through the first part of the presentation. 

Of course, some goals for this orientation, and the first one is to really make sure you understand OVC goals, requirements, and expectations for your award. Second is to give you the tools to locate, understand, and navigate DOJ systems. And then finally, to ensure, you know, specific elements of your OVC Grant Awards, as well as helpful resources and support available to you through the life of your award.

Before we get started, I'm going to share a little bit more about the Office for Victims of Crime and the Human Trafficking Division. So go ahead and ask for the next slide, please.

Here are those, the tech gods coming in. It's all right. I'll go ahead and keep going and it'll catch up, hopefully, to us.

So the mission at OVC is to enhance the nation's capacity to assist crime victims and provide leadership in changing attitudes, policies, and practices to promote justice and healing for all victims of crime. In addition to managing anti-trafficking funding, OVC administers the crime victims funds and supports state victim assistance and compensation programs. The human trafficking division more specifically seeks to enhance capacity to identify, assist, and provide services to all victims of human trafficking through victim-centered, trauma-informed programs, policies, and resources that promote justice, access, and empowerment. 

Now I'm going to talk a little bit more about our human trafficking division. The next slide, please. Great, thank you. The human trafficking division oversees the largest amount of federal funding for anti-trafficking programs in the U.S. It manages over 465 human trafficking awards that cover almost every state and territory, as you saw in the chat today from everyone that is joining us. And the majority of human trafficking funds support direct services to victims as well as multidisciplinary teams, statewide response to child and youth trafficking, and then training and technical assistance. Next slide, please.

This is a high-level overview of all of our human trafficking programs, so you may find your program represented in one of these squares here. And as a reminder, today's orientation is designed for all of our FY 23 programs across—grantees across these various programs.

[I] just wanted to also point out that there will be subsequent and additional orientations that will be specific to your specific program, so please stay tuned for more information from your training and technical assistance provider or your Grant Manager. And we'll have some more information at the end of this webinar as well. Next slide. 

Now, as you get started on program planning, we wanted to remind you about the importance of understanding and referring back to your solicitation. Your solicitation has specific information on your program requirements and can answer some of your questions that are more program-specific.

For the first activity in this webinar, we are going to ask that each of you open your solicitation so that we can direct you to those program requirements. On the next slide, and in the chat, you all will find specific links to your FY 23 solicitation. You can go ahead and find your solicitation in the chat, and then we're going to ask for you to click on this—on your specific link—and then download and open your solicitation. 

In the chat you'll see the solicitation link specifically for the housing assistance program, and then you’ll see them populating in for the enhanced collaborative model. Again, you're going to want to find your specific link for your program and then we're going to ask you to go ahead and navigate there. And on the next page, or the next slide, you'll see what will come up on the website for you. Once you click on this link, you should be, it should direct you to a page that looks like what's on the left here. Again, this is just an example of what it will look like for the anti-trafficking housing assistance program.

You're going to want to click the green button that says download. And from there you should be able to view your specific solicitation. And once you open your solicitation, you're going to want to navigate to the table of contents. And then on the table of contents, there's two ways to find your mandatory program requirements. You can go on the table of contents, and some solicitations have a specific category called mandatory program requirements. Go ahead and click on that. If your solicitation does not have a mandatory program requirements listed on the table of contents, go ahead and find the specific information category on your solicitation. And then you can go ahead and click there. And it should take you to a section that contains all of the mandatory program requirements specific for your award.

This is a reminder that you should take some time to re-familiarize yourself with these mandatory program requirements and ensure that they are helping [to] guide you in your work and your deliverables as you begin your program planning. 

And then, of course, if you have any specific questions on these mandatory requirements, feel free to reach out to your OVC Grant Manager, or you can drop a question in the chat feature, or in the Q&A feature, excuse me, and we will try to answer those.

But for now, I will hand it to Tiffany who's going to continue with the next part of our webinar.

TIFFANY GRAHAM: Thank you, Natalia. If we could go to the next slide. Thank you. At this time, I am going to ask that all of the grantees that have staff members have assigned roles in JustGrants to please log in to JustGrants. You do have to have an assigned role in JustGrants and a login in order to do that.

HTC should be dropping the link in the chat. Once you are logged into the JustGrants system, I will ask that you navigate to your current 2023 award and confirm who your Grant Manager is. We also ask that you stay logged in because there will be a demonstration later on, in a few slides. Okay, and we can move on to the next slide.

Here we're going to discuss the role of the Grant Manager. Monitor—Grant Managers monitor grantee compliance with programmatic, administrative, and physical requirements of relative statutes, regulations, policy guidelines, and with grantee-stated objectives and implementation plans.

They also perform desk reviews, in-depth remote programmatic monitoring, and/or site visits. Grant Managers also approve performance reports and any modifications to awards. Grant Managers also must approve any changes of scope of work, or use of grant funds for activities that were not included in your original budget or narrative—project narrative.

I also wanted to highlight, I know that you will hear throughout presentations today and in interactions with your contact at OVC, different titles, whether it be Grant Manager Specialist, whether it be Grant Manager, or Victim Justice Program Specialist or Grant Monitors. We all are the same. We do the same thing. I don't want anyone getting confused by that. 

I did also want to mention that you will receive correspondence from the Program Manager Lead, which is the individual that was leading the solicitation that you applied for. You will also be receiving correspondence from your actually assigned Grant Manager. All information that you receive from these individuals, you please want to—you want to keep record of, and note that at this point, you probably won't be receiving any more correspondence from the Program Manager or the manager—the Program Lead, I apologize. It will be specifically from your assigned Grant Manager. So just wanted to put that out there as a reminder. Next slide.

I will pass this on to Aubrey.

AUBREY LLOYD: All right, so again, we're just logging into JustGrants. We're going to go through some of those pieces in just a moment. And again, if you didn't get your link, your solicitation, it is okay. You will have that again. Just important to know that those things are vital to your success. Alright, so going back to Menti, same number for engagement scan.

Click Menti.com, 1392 4720. So I had, like, 136 that are—at our highest point, so let's see if we can get more than 136 engaging in these questions. Go ahead and let's open this up.

I will hum to you randomly for no reason, that is who I am.

Everything became glacial. That's what Tuesday is as well. Right, I can, while we're pulling that up, go ahead and go through those questions. And we have some good questions here. So again, we're trying to see [if] we can engage with more than 138.

So, important question. What do you think OVC defines as a failure in administering your award?

We're just going to lean right into this. So how do you think OVC to defines that? Misuse of funds, misspending, financial mismanagement. Not using funds properly, fraud, waste, abuse, someone's read the guide. Non-responsive, not doing the reports, not meeting requirements, not carrying out the work described. Not meeting your objectives. I said let's go over 130 y'all, we're only at 51. Come on, friends.

Fraud. Absolutely. Not reporting. Harming survivors, absolutely. What else? Is failure asking questions? Because you've been a grantee for several years and you still just don't know the—quite the right question.

We can go down on the slide a little bit. See all the responders. Dishonesty, [non]compliance, fraud. Mismanagement, staff trafficking people. Yeah. Not meeting goals. Incompetency on deliverables, not being in compliance. Lack of effort, right. Yes. So, what we did not see is asking questions. What we did not see is not understanding how to do all of these things. What we did not see, out of the 122 responses—we’re close friends—is that we can’t ask questions, that we're expected to know all of the things, because that's not what we're all here for.

Not seeing clients, lateness. So, the biggest thing is about communication, right? And making sure that we're asking questions, even if we've asked the question before. Fantastic. Okay. So, we've defined some different pieces of what OVC may define as failure. Right. And it's not asking questions. It's not not making sure we know all of the things. Not meeting initial goals, we can talk through some of those pieces as well. 

Okay, next question. As we started to define what we think about as failure, what do you think we're going to define as success? What is OVC defining as success in administering your award?

Seeing all of the people. Connection to services, completion of goals. Reported metrics, goals, working towards goals, meeting the goals, learning. Person-centered, trauma-informed care; success stories; and collaboration. And we can scroll down a little bit for the responses.

Meeting/surpassing objectives, achieving goals, communicating, meeting goals in the chat as well. Being creative to try new strategies. Yeah, sometimes you try things that don't land quite right. Yeah, being compliant, meeting the goals, meeting objectives, working with the Grant Manager, making progress, serving survivors.

Serving participants, solid, accurate reporting, communication, flexibility. Yeah. Transparency, collaboration, survivors, success. Making an impact, serving clients. Meaningful and safe engagement, being thoughtful about what those things mean. Yep, meeting goals again. Communities impacted, being able to be thoughtful with our partners and our providers, understanding what is trafficking. Yeah.

So, why haven't we put in it's just about numbers? We have to serve all of the people. We haven't seen that come up yet. One of the most valuable things that I've learned from OVC and providing support to all of you is that it really is about quality and intention and being able to be mindful of what all of this looks like in your own individual community. And so sometimes you would get caught up on the wrong things, and so these are the things to go back and remind yourself on the Tuesday where nothing feels like it's going right: this is your success. Where we stepped in one time. I did get the reporting done today. I was thoughtful and I was present with my staff. Right? Because this comes fast and furious and it feels like a lot. Right? And just the little pieces are super important as well.

Oh my gosh, pivoting, and working with your Grant Manager, and changing goals? Absolutely. Who you were as an agency when you wrote this and where you may need to be for next week, if we did not understand some of the importance of re-shifting during the pandemic, right? Yeah, dignity and empathy. Love, love, love. So again, great. Reminders for all of us as we kind of lean in.

Beautiful. All right, Tiffany, let's have this better understand the roles.

TIFFANY GRAHAM: I think we actually skipped a slide. OVC expectations for grantees. There we go. Or, one more up. There we go, thank you. So, now we're going to talk about OVC's expectations for grantees. Grantees are expected to understand the solicitation and specific work award conditions and requirements for their award. Be familiar with their project goals, objectives, activities, and application materials. Work with their Grant Manager to successfully administer the grant award.

Know how to navigate different DOJ systems and locate existing supporting resources, guidance, and support. Also, you know, as a reminder, as kind of with the activity, frequent communication is important.

Finally, report submissions, responsiveness to OVC requests. Again, we're here to assist you and to help you navigate through being able to provide the services that are needed in your community and stay compliant. Next slide.

Grantees’ expectations for OVC. Your Grant Manager will help your organization successfully navigate the onboarding process. Answer administrative and programmatic questions and concerns. Address questions you may have about award conditions. Review all grants award modifications, otherwise known as GAMs, in JustGrants, address any concerns, and move forward for final OVC approval. Work with you to ensure programmatic and/or financial changes are appropriately documented.

Work with your TTA provider to ensure that you are receiving requested training and technical assistance. Inform you of OVC events and online resources to support your programmatic requirements. Consult with your team on any programmatic changes such as changes of scope, key personnel changes, etc. Refer you to helpful training, resources, guidance, and websites. Next slide.

So, this next slide is really to point you all to the OVC FAQ page, which I believe HTC will be dropping a link in the chat box. OVC recently released the OVC Human Trafficking Program FAQs. This includes frequently asked financial, administrative, and programmatic questions, and responses about OVC Human Trafficking Awards. All grantees are strongly encouraged to review and consult these regularly, and hopefully you all were able to grab that link out of the chat box. I believe it is there. Next slide.

This slide is understanding role assignment. On this slide, we'll talk about Grant Award Administrators (the GAA), the Financial Manager, and program staff. Grant Award Administrators are to serve as the primary POC for your grant award. They are responsible for semi-annual performance report submissions and grant award modification submissions. They should attend leadership and Grant Award Administrator-specific training, and TTA provider check-ins as necessary.

Required—they’re required to complete the DOJ financial management training. They also are responsible for making sure that your TTA provider has the appropriate contact information, so that if new staff—so new staff are receiving important information. They are also responsible for sharing OVC communications with the program staff.

The Financial Manager is responsible for focusing on training, reporting, and timekeeping. They are also required to complete the DOJ financial management training as well. There is a special condition that all grants have that requires both the GAA, the Grant Award Administrator, and the Financial Management—Financial Manager, sorry, to complete the training and also provide a confirmation in the form of a certificate of completion that they've completed this training to your OVC Grant Manager, so that the special condition can be marked as complete and satisfied. But back to the responsibilities, also complete—the Financial Manager also completes quarterly financial reporting. They oversee timekeeping and invoicing. 

Now, your program staff. They're responsible for the program and direct service work, and should be ready for the work, knowing what the clients are eligible for, what services and, what the grant says in terms of what you will have set out in your proposal, your application, that you will be providing as services. Program staff are also required to sign up for [your] TTA provider listserv to receive important information surrounding HTTTA provider trainings and support opportunities. Next slide.

And I will hand this over to Darian.

DARIAN HANRAHAN: Thanks, Tiffany, and hi everyone. So, I think we are going to get to the most thrilling part of the presentation if I do say so myself. We're going to be talking about JustGrants, so hopefully everyone who does have access to the system has been able to pull it up already. If not, you could just open whatever browser you're using, type in JustGrants, it should pop right up. 

My goal here in talking about JustGrants is to make this as painless as possible to really break down the system, show you where you can find things, where to expect to see things. So, hold onto your hats, and for those of you who don't have access to JustGrants, I promise, we, have more to come.

Alright, so with access to JustGrants, this is what you should see as soon as you log in to the system. Again, for those with access. You have all of these options on the left-hand side, and under my work list right there, it's going to include any specific action items that you may have for your reward. But from here, I'm going to direct you to a few different places to get you more familiar with the system if you aren’t already. We can move to the next slide.

Awesome. One place we're hoping that you become more familiar with is entity documents, and it's an option, again, right on the left-hand side. This area is where you can upload any general documents that you have for your award. This could include your organization's indirect cost rate agreement or audits. This is also a really fantastic place to upload the DOJ Grant Financial Management Training Completion certificates for the award’s Grant Award Administrator and Financial Manager. You're going to hear reminders about that training several times during this webinar. But this is a really great place to put all of your documents in, and once you upload them, your Grant Manager will be able to see them on our end as well. Go to the next slide.

Similar to entity documents, we're going to talk about entity roles a little bit. Here is where you can see all of the members of your organization that were assigned a specific role, or even multiple roles, for your award. As a reminder to folks, only the assigned entity administrator is able to assign roles. So, if for some reason or another, your Financial Manager needs to be swapped out with another staff member, the only person in your organization able to make that change is your entity administrator. They have to go into the system and make sure. All of that is changed.

AUBREY LLOYD: Darian, we have a couple of questions, about the entity documents could we—just real quick.

DARIAN HANRAHAN: Yeah, absolutely.

AUBREY LLOYD: So, if they don't, if they don't see documents where it says entity documents, is that okay?

DARIAN HANRAHAN: Yeah, absolutely. It's—it's a place where you as the grantee or staff member at the grantee organization can upload any documents that, you know, you have for file keeping purposes that would be helpful for your Grant Manager to see as well. So, staff members with roles in JustGrants should be able to see those, and your Grant Manager will be able to see them on our end as well.

AUBREY LLOYD: And then one quick one is, who has the ability to upload any of those entity documents?

DARIAN HANRAHAN: Staff members that have assigned roles within JustGrants. So, the Grant Award Administrator, the Financial Manager, Alternate Grant Award Administrator, they'll be able to upload them.

AUBREY LLOYD: Fantastic. And again, if you have questions, put that in the Q&A, but just wanted to get a couple of things in real time. Thanks, Darian.

DARIAN HANRAHAN: Yeah, absolutely. So, we can move on to the next slide.

Alright, your active award screen. In order to see that, you just want to click on the award button on that left-hand side. I want to draw your attention to the very top of your award screen where it says that, “pending active,” in purple. That's the status you ideally want to have at all times. This means that your award is active, there are no holds on your funding. Don't worry about pending. That's frequently a source of communication—of miscommunication, but pending active, that purple banner, is exactly what you want to have for your award.

However, the status will change automatically if any of your performance reports and/or your federal financial reports or FSRs are delinquent. If they are delinquent, JustGrants essentially automatically communicates with the ASAP system that you are delinquent in your requirement, and as a result, your ASAP account is suspended, and you will be unable to draw down funds. This is not a button that your Grant Manager pushes or that our budget office pushes. This is automatically done when your reports are delinquent.

In addition, your account might be suspended if your SAM status has expired. So, if you do see that ugly red banner at the top of your page saying the account is suspended and you can't quite figure out why, keep an eye on your expiration date and that might be the issue with that.

Moving on. Perfect. Award conditions. You can find your award conditions a few different places. The most obvious one is going to be under the “award conditions” tab of your award profile. As you can see from this screenshot that HTC was lovely enough to show us from their award profile, the way it's written out on the screen right now isn't particularly helpful when you're reviewing award conditions. So, you can use that actions button at the top right-hand side to select the print option, and that's going to help. And we can go to the next slide.

Alright, so. That's going to help drop them down if you click that print button. Another place you can view your award conditions is under the award package tab of your award profile, and you want to scroll down, and you can collapse the award conditions option. From there, you'll see—like an accordion of all your award conditions.

As a reminder, when it comes with—to award conditions, most of these are standard across all OVC and OVC Human Trafficking Program Awards. Also, a reminder here that that required DOJ grants financial management training is a specific award condition, again, indicating that the assigned Grant Award Administrator and the Financial Manager have to complete that training.

I also want to note that if for some reason, that staff member changes at any time, whoever replaces in those roles needs to take the training as well, so please be sure to stay on top of that requirement. 

With your work conditions, because most of them are pretty standardized, usually the last few of the listed award conditions are going to be those that require a specific action on your end. So, for example, I believe almost all of our new awards went out the door with a pending budget clearance with holding award conditions, so it withheld 90% of your award funds pending the review and approval of your budget by our budget office. That's an example of one that you would see towards the end of your award commission left. Please check with your assigned Grant Manager if you do have any specific questions about your award conditions.

Alright, moving on to performance reports. Again, your performance reports can be found in either two places. You can go back to My Work List on the JustGrants main page, or you can click under the Performance Management tab within your award profile.

I do want to remind folks to make sure that you click into the performance report for the correct reporting period when you work on your semiannual report. Oftentimes, the system automatically generates pretty much all of the reports that you'll be required to complete during your project period, and it's open, so for some reason you could technically work on the report for like 2 reporting periods from now, but that is definitely not what you want. So, when you are starting to work on your performance report, that's due for the upcoming deadline, you want to make sure that you're clicking into that right one.

Within each performance report, you're going to see a case ID for the narrative question set that you would click into in order to respond to those narrative questions. The narrative questions, however, make up just one part of your performance report submission, and the narrative question set is really where you should provide that detailed information on project activity that occurred within the reporting period. That's where you can really get down in the weeds with exactly what happened, your successes, your challenges. We as Grant Managers love to see that information. 

Additionally, the performance report submission itself should also include a copy of the data report that's generated by the performance measurement tool, or PMT system. We're going to talk a little bit more about performance measures and PMTs later in this presentation, so hold off on stressing about that for now, but we can move to the next slide.

So, just wrapping up our discussion of performance reports for the time being, I want to make sure that when you go to submit your performance report, you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. And that's where you can upload any attachments you have, but it also has a submit button all the way down on the right-hand side. That button actually has to be clicked in order to submit your performance reports. We often see this pop up as an issue because clicking Save seems like a more obvious way to submit your performance report because the button is easier to find, but when you are working on your report, when you're ready to submit, please be sure that you find and click that submit button because clicking save is not going to send it to your Grant Manager for review.

When it comes to performance reports, we really highly recommend adding the due dates to your calendar now for your reports. As a reminder, performance reports are submitted on a semiannual basis with the due dates of January 30 for the July 1 through December 31 reporting period, and July 30 for the January 1 through June 30 reporting period. 

I do want to note, that you, grantees, FY 23 grantees, are still required to submit a performance report by January 30, 2024, for the October 1 through December 31, 2023, reporting period. We realize that many of our grantees will still be waiting on a budget clearance or may not have started any project activities during that time. That is completely normal. But all grantees are required to submit a report by that January 30 deadline, and you can touch base with your program manager if you have any questions.

Alright, moving on to deliverables. Some awards might have specific required award—award deliverables, and your solicitation is going to outline any requirements that you might have under the goals, objectives, and deliverable section. If they aren't listed there, pretty much good to go, but definitely coming back to the fact that you should be really familiar with your solicitation and what those requirements are.

In order to find the deliverable section in JustGrants, you can click into the performance measurement—performance management tab within your award profile and scroll down the page. You can see from the screenshot here, that you have your performance reporting section and that's where you can click into each performance report and reporting period and complete that submission. 

But towards the bottom is where you see this award deliverable section. This is where you can upload and send to your Grant Manager any specific deliverables you may have. I will note that this is also a really great place to upload and submit your organization's anti-trafficking policies and procedures once OVC formally requests them. Information on that process is outlined in your solicitation and in your award conditions. However, we don't begin that process for our new grantees until early spring, so stay tuned for more information on that in the coming months. But [I] wanted to give you a sense of where that deliverable section would be.

Alright, we are almost done with the JustGrants system, I promise. Lastly, we're going to be talking about federal financial reports, or FFRs. Luckily, they're pretty, pretty easy to locate. They're going to be found specifically under the federal financial report tab of your award profile. When you want to begin on your FFR, you just hit that Begin button to the side and that's going to take you into the FFR for that reporting period.

For those of you that might already be familiar with JustGrants, you may understand that the back button isn't—doesn't jive very well with the system. So, especially when it comes to FFR, please try to refrain from hitting that back button, because it's going to take you actually all the way out and you're going to have to restart everything. 

It's similar to performance reports. We highly recommend adding the due date to your calendar now for FFR. As a reminder, these are submitted on a quarterly basis and you're going to have those due dates of January 30 for the October 1 through December 31 reporting period. April 30 for the January 1 through March 31 reporting period. July 30 for the April 1 through June 30 reporting period. And October 30 for the July 1 through September 30 reporting period.

And again, similar to the performance report, I do want to note that new grantees will still be required to submit a FFR for the October 1 through December 31, 2023, reporting period by January 30, 2024. And again, we realize that many grantees may still be waiting on a budget clearance by that time and/or have not started their project activities. Again, totally normal, but that report submission is the requirement.

Okay, we made it through JustGrants. I am thrilled for us. However, we are going to be talking about some JustGrants adjacent topics. So, HTC is going to navigate us to the Justice Grants training webpage. And I believe they'll be popping a link in the chat as well. Okay. Perfect.

This is one of my all-time favorite websites. I feel like that's a weird thing to say about JustGrants, but I wish more people knew about this website, referred to this website, and I will tell you why.

From here, HTC is going to be navigating a bit for us. The Justice Grants training and resource webpage is really designed to help users with the JustGrants system. It's pretty much got anything you could possibly want when it comes to training, which is really great.

Can we scroll? Can we click the training box right there? Perfect. Alright. This is where you can find trainings on pretty much any major topic that you have in mind. The JustGrants team has been kind enough to organize everything into very neat boxes by topic areas. That's going to be your entity management, your entity user experience, application submission, grant award acceptance, award management, grant award modifications (or GAMs), financial reporting, performance reporting, monitoring, close out, and our virtual QA sessions and resources. 

One thing I really want to highlight, though, is our virtual QA session. You can click into that. I feel like this is one of the best-kept secrets that I wish was not a secret at all. The Justice team facilitates weekly sessions that give users a chance to receive topic-specific training and direct technical assistance and support on JustGrants. They hold four weekly sessions, and the topics include post-award management, entity management, submitting an application, and award acceptance. I really recommend consulting this page, bookmarking it, keeping those days in mind, because they are a really great and you're able to get a lot of that one-on-one assistance there.

Alright, can we scroll up? Amazing. And can you click on the resources button at the top of the page? Perfect. I want to highlight a few other things. This resource page is really where you can go to find information about non-JustGrants topics. You can look at things for other funding sources, Grants.gov, SAM.gov, and ASAP. We do see a lot of questions about ASAP, and the ASAP resources there are absolutely fantastic. They include things like a registration checklist, a user guide, specific FAQs.

I will note that your Grant Manager is not responsible for ASAP. We don't have access to it. Financials are not in our wheelhouse, so if you do have questions about ASAP, those should be directed to the OCFO, or Office of the Chief Financial Officer, customer service line and not OVC program managers. And we'll provide all of that contact and help desk information later on in the presentation. 

And from there, we are going to—we are done with JustGrants and JustGrants-related topics. From here, we're going to transition to the OVC Human Tracking webpage. We will drop a link in the chat. If you want to DIY it, you can just go into your browser and type OVC human tracking program, and it should pop right up.

And now, I'm going to pass it to my colleague, Nyeri.

NYERI RICHARDS: Thank you, Darian. Okay, so let's take a look at the OVC Human Trafficking main homepage. Right. And at the top of the page, you'll see a toolbar that will help you navigate back to general areas of interest within OVC. Okay. And we're going to move to the overview section of the human trafficking page. Thank you.

Alright, perfect. Okay, within the body of the main page, you'll see the overview section, which is a general area, synopsis of human trafficking, including its definition, what victimhood may look like, who we serve. And downward will give you additional insights and announcements, resources, and TTA providers.

If we scroll back up and look to the right, you'll see an information panel. And within that right sidebar, are accordions that will help you navigate to the specific areas of interest. For example, you see the service and task force map. If you click on that, that will outline where in the country we are currently funding anti-trafficking programs.

And other areas that you'll find on the sidebar and include the overview, the “about human trafficking,” the OVC efforts, victims and survivors, anti-trafficking professionals, grants and funding, services and the task force map—which [is the] page we just looked at—and then the OVC human trafficking FAQs, which we’ll go over next. Resources, TTA help, and additional information. 

So now let's navigate to the FAQ site. Perfect. Before we begin, who, if any, have navigated to the OVC Human Trafficking Program FAQs? Who's familiar with this site, and you can drop it in the chat or use your thumbs up. Great, great. Okay. So, some of you are pretty familiar. So, whether you're familiar with the FAQ page and you heavily rely on it for information, or you're new to this tool, please keep in mind to always consult the solicitation regularly. Usually, the answer is in there.

Alright, so scrolling downward near the center of the page, you'll find the search filters. And you can search by three different areas of focus: financial, administrative, and programmatic. You click on topics, and they can see the dropdowns. Okay, but let's say you're not quite sure the topic or question that directly relates to those topic areas, and so, you can type in keywords and the system will populate FAQs for that word. 

Let's look at a few examples. Let's type in match and see what pops. Perfect. So, when you type in match, you have four different FAQs that may relate to your question. If you click on each, it will expand. Okay, great. Alright, let's look at another term. Let's—let's search mandatory. And again, these are just keywords that will help you formulate your question or the answer that you're looking for. So, mandatory gave us two options. Perfect. Okay, how about prevention? Let's search prevention. Okay, perfect. So, here you can see information that's specific to that term, prevention, which we'll talk about in a moment, very, very important.

Okay, great. Let's take a moment and have you all navigate to this page if you haven't already. And take a few moments to search different terms. Client eligibility would be a good term to search and see what populates for that, or prevention. Perfect, so we have two areas here on client eligibility. And those are really very important because it talks about the age restrictions and other parameters around what OVC constitutes as an eligible client.

When we search—but let's go back and search the term prevention. And for those that are following along with us, pay close attention to the terminology used in the FAQs. Take a moment so people can catch up and skim through it.

Okay, so the first question we have here is, ”Can I use OVC Human Trafficking Award funding to support prevention activities?” Can anybody from what we see here answer that question? Is OVC funding allowable for preventative activities?

Leda said no. So, it's yes and no. Preventative activities are allowable, but only if it's under a specific solicitation. And that solicitation currently is the Preventing Trafficking of Girls program. So, if you are not funded under that award, then preventative activities are not allowable.

Perfect. If you're looking for something centered around performance measures, look to the OVC website under the funding and awards tab, which again, you can find that on the toolbar up at the top. And that toolbar will remain there through each page. 

Perfect. So now let's go ahead and navigate to the Human Trafficking Performance site. Okay, perfect. So, if you scroll to the center of the page—little bit more down. Oh, we need to be on the Performance Measure site. We're still on FAQs—perfect. And if you scroll a little bit downward to the links. Perfect. You will see a link for the FY 2020 and 2022 grantees performance measure training. And then directly under that, you will see a training on writing a comprehensive narrative report. Both of those are extremely important. 

And if you have questions or specific to performance measures and the PMT system, which is where you place your performance data, those questions can be directly given to the PMT team. And to find their information, you can use the contact us, which is on the right-hand information panel, and you can find them there and someone from the HTC team will kindly drop that information for you all in the chat.

Alright, so now we're going to navigate to the DOJ Financial Guide. Perfect. And here is a brief snapshot of the DOJ financial guide web page, and you can find a lot of key information here. And what you'll notice is directly at the top under the forward, there are links to the top 10 topic areas. And we see financial management systems, allowable costs, unallowable costs. FFRs, which Darian just went over with you, and the performance reports, audit requirements, conference costs, adjustments to the awards, accounting by approved budget category, and subrecipient monitoring.

If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, you will find the PDF version of the guide. I highly recommend downloading that in saving it as sometimes it's a little easier to navigate through the PDF version using the control find option to search some of those keywords.

Right. So that concludes this portion of navigating through the OVC Human Trafficking website. And I am now going to pass back to Aubrey.

AUBREY LLOYD: Fantastic. All right, so some of you are like, where did we just go? If you feel that way, you are absolutely where you're supposed to be at this point of orientation. So, a lot of this, one, is to have it be recorded because you're going to go back and go through this content. You also have lots of supports that are available to you to go back and help orient all of the information. Okay, so a lot of that was just letting you know there are resources available, and sometimes it's just giving us a call and us helping you kind of go through that and find it on your browser as well. So don't worry about that. You will have context, I promise. 

Okay, so now we're going to see what has stuck. Are you ready for the quiz portion of today? Some of you just groaned and that's okay. We're okay. 

Alright, scenario one. You need to find a list of your award conditions. Where would you go to find this information? Please drop that in the chat. Where do we go? JustGrants, okay. Alright. Fantastic. See, and you guys aren't sure that you learned anything today. We are winning. We're winning in the Q&A. We're winning in chat. Your solicitation, the award package, JustGrants. Fantastic. See, I told you were winning. Yes, look at, look at, look at Kelly, JustGrants, award, scroll down, don't hit back button. We have learned many things today, friends. Fantastic. Okay.

Scenario two. Alright. You need more information on allowable or unallowable costs. Where do you go to find this information? OVC, solicitation. I feel like we're a little—there we are, DOJ Financial Guide and FAQs. Absolutely. Okay, we're getting all specific. I like it. DOJ Financial Guide, again, we have—I have it bookmarked. It's a fantastic thing to be able to go through and ask a quick question. FAQs are also there, to help support. And so, although everyone loves to talk, sometimes those are quick answers you can find. So, look at that, winning, winning, fantastic.

Alright, just a few more things as we wrap up. So, I do not have any open QA questions at this time. Again, if you have questions that you asked in the chat and you didn't have answered, go ahead and do that now. And anything that was answered we do pull so you have the link to that resource. There are many of you that had questions around entity management, “How do I upload this?” “Where did we just talk about the GAMs” So that stuff has been answered and we will give you the links to those answers and the questions as part of our follow-up email to this as well. 

And again, the beauty of this being recorded is you get to go back and hear many of this several times and that is fantastic. So, if you have nothing to do next Tuesday, boom. Okay, so just awaiting any more questions. And again, it's a lot of information. 

Okay, “How can I view all of this while we are waiting on the ASAP clearance?” Anybody from OVC want to pop on? So, waiting for ASAP clearance.

DARIAN HANRAHAN: Hey, Aubrey, it's Darian. To answer that question, you should still be able to access your JustGrants account. However, when talking about ASAP clearance, if a grantee could clarify whether they're talking about setting up their ASAP account or whether they're waiting for budget clearance, because those are two different processes. But regardless, you should be able to work on everything in JustGrants.

AUBREY LLOYD: It looks like we have OVC answering several questions about how long it takes for GAMs to get approved and also about the fiscal training. So, one question, it looks like it was already answered in the—the Q&A about the government shutdown. And we can pop over there, take a look about that as well. So again, any questions that were already asked, we will go ahead and give you the answers to those as well. Lots of resources were also shared in the chat, so don't worry about that. That will also be moved over for you as well.

And Darian is answering in about performance reports. Okay.

CINDY ERICH: Aubrey, this is Cynthia Erich with OVC. Can I jump in for clarifying?

AUBREY LLOYD: Please.

CINDY ERICH: Great, thank you. Just so I—again, I’m Cindy Erich and Senior Policy advisor here at the Human Trafficking Division with OVC, and the Program Manager for the Preventing Trafficking of Girls Initiative. And I just wanted to give a little bit of a clarifying component to the question regarding primary prevention and other prevention, what OVC funding can fund. 

For most OVC human trafficking programs funded under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the TVPA, the purpose of this funding is to support victim service programs. Therefore, applicants and grantees should not propose primary prevention activities under this program. These, primary prevention, although those of you, I know I'm speaking to the field, are any activities designed to protect individuals prior to victimization, so stopping victimization before it occurs. So primary prevention activities can include activities focused on the perpetrator of a crime, or that are focused primarily on crime prevention.

Training and outreach conducted using OVC anti-trafficking funding should have the primary purpose of identification and referral of victims. But prevention may be an ancillary outcome of the program, so activities focus on preventing the re-victimization of trafficking survivors are allowable. Again, a lot of information. I know it's nuanced. As you're working with your program manager, we can help you, you know, better delineate where your funding and your focus is. But I just wanted to make sure that that was a little bit more clear. And again, any questions that you have, we are here to walk alongside you.

AUBREY LLOYD: Thank you, Cindy, for that clarification. Love that. Okay, so again, if you have any questions that pop up, go ahead and answer that and everything that's been answered we will give you the questions and the answers.

We're going to move through. We are almost there. We have—we're going to go into Menti now. Last Menti for today, again QR code, and again, we have not gone over 130 and I want us to do that today. I want to end strong. So again, Menti.com code is 1392 4720.

A couple more questions. We are almost there. Alright.

How can the GAAs keep their OVC-funded program staff in the loop? So, if you're the designated point of contact for your grant, how can you make sure that everyone in your staff gets the information, regular communication, email, meetings, trainings?

Forwarding, absolutely. Sign up for TTA. Check-ins, share TTAC, yeah, sign up for TTA monthly meetings. Love for listserv. Regular meetings, email. Absolutely. Fantastic. Communication. That's the heart of where we are today. Fantastic. And again, it's hard, we get busy, but again, this information is for everyone that is working under the OVC funded program. So, important to share.

We were close to 106. Alright, I'm feeling the pressure. Let's increase this engagement for the next one. Weekly supervision, love it. Okay. Next question. 

What are some of your takeaways from this orientation? I'm still lost in how to do a GAM. What is a GAM? What are your takeaways for today? Ask questions, good resources, read the FAQs, wealth of resources available. Ask any and all questions, regular communication. Understanding where to find help. Appreciate the guidance. OVC is there to help. Absolutely. I need more training. Fantastic. We have friends that want to walk alongside you.

We can me scroll down. How to navigate everything, and again, bookmarking things, even if you just take some time in a staff meeting, go through the resources together and bookmark as a team, they will come in handy, I promise. We are winning. We actually are winning. See? You, you can put that in your status share. It happened today, friends. I will cosign it. Lots of help available. How to navigate JustGrants. Fantastic. That is the winner. We're—if we're doing gold medals, you get that today.

The cat herder and navigating JustGrants. Communication, links and resources, OVC and TTA providers are there. Absolutely. Super grateful you completed the financial training early. I'm telling you the winning in this group, man. I'm proud to be part of it today OVC staff are partners. Absolutely. Absolutely. I have such a wealth of information and knowledge and respect for everyone at OVC and they really want to connect with you. Using FAQ and websites, where to find answers, I feel validated and not alone. Absolutely. Oh yeah, you're going to get to hang out with us even more as your TTA provider.

Lots of resources online asking questions. Ask, ask, ask. And sometimes it's fun to figure out if we can find the answer together. Because sometimes we're not sure, so we have to kind of do it together. Doable and possible. Go back to double check, finding stuff. Isn't that where we are? I found some stuff today. I get pretty excited. OVC absolutely cares and is excited about the work that you're doing and you're going to do.

We're getting gold stars in the chat. We got some book recommendations. We're now doing a book club. See? Leaning in. Oh, I thought that was Burger King. I again am still hungry, so we are working through that as a personal thing. Lots of resources, trust the process. Yes. Very nice. Love having all of you all here. Fantastic. Yep, definitely partners, not overlords. Kristin rocks, absolutely.

Now we're going to have a battle here. I feel it brewing. I'm down for it. We can do a dance battle. Maybe that's what this orientation needs. We're almost at a closeup.

Super excited to have you on here as well. And Cindy is going to close us up and then we just have a couple more things. So again, anything unclear? You can say all of the above. Again, this will be recorded. You will have the Menti answers. You will have stuff from chat.

Okay, reviewing the slides. Alright. Fantastic, good. Okay. Yes, it's okay if we don't know, but you know there's something out there. Fantastic. Alright. All right, Cindy. Go ahead and we have lots of crystal clears and nos. We're going to note that and some confidence of where to go, and we're going to go ahead and move us through the last few slides we have for today.

CINDY ERICH: Aubrey, thank you so much. Again, as we begin to line down our presentation on behalf of the OVC Human Trafficking Division, I want to thank each of you for taking the time out of your very busy schedules to join us today. There was a tremendous amount of information. I know we all probably need a collective breath in. And out.

We, again, as we said several times throughout today, your program managers are here, your TTA providers are here, to walk alongside of you through the length of your award to best support your anti-trafficking efforts. There was a lot of questions about entity enrollment and who can upload documents, and you will have all of this information. We will follow up with an email with these slides and with this presentation. You are not alone in this, so please know that.

On your slide now is a quick overview of helpful links. To the Office of the Chief Financial Officer, the JustGrants Support Desk, the Automated Standard Application for Payments, the ASAP system. Those are our experts. Again, that is run through the Treasury Department. And last but not least, our OVC Performance Measures team to help address any questions regarding your performance data reports.

Stay tuned also for a soon-to-be-released grantee orientation catalog on our website designed specifically for you, for OVC Anti-trafficking Grant recipients, to successfully manage your awards through a user-friendly online resource. So, more to come on that soon. Next slide, please.

Also, to help with your financial implementation, management, and reporting, the new OVC Financial Management Resource Center offers support with your budget clearances, grant award modifications, preparing for site visits, and in-depth monitoring, reallocating funds to meet project goals, project period extensions. The FMRC can also assist with the development of policies and processes. Budgeting, bookkeeping, fraud prevention, reporting, record retention, time and effort and emerging issues. Again, all of these that I know is so important. As you're implementing these awards, again, you have this resource available to you. More on this to come soon as well. 

But in the meantime, please see the link in the chat for the OJP territories financial support center, which is another incredible resource to help address your financial questions and concerns with many resources available on that site also available in Spanish. Next slide, please. 

As I mentioned, your training and technical assistance providers will be here to support your efforts throughout the life of your OVC award. You will have access to the field's best subject matter experts in the anti-trafficking field offering their expertise to best serve your individual programmatic needs. And as you can see here, we have a cadre of training and technical assistance providers with unique specializations and expertise, including victim services, housing, legal services, enhanced collaborative model task forces, preventing trafficking of girls, improving outcomes, survivor engagement, labor trafficking, and employment. Next slide, please.

To help you—actually, we can go to the next slide, please. I went a little too fast. Thank you. We have an easy-to-use matrix on our website that includes some in-depth information on all of our training and technical assistance that OVC offers to you and all of our anti-trafficking programs. You can easily search by focus and audience for yourself and your partners to see what is available to best support your specific training and technical assistance needs. So again, a lot of information and still more to come. Just remember we are all here to support your efforts and the tremendous work that you were doing to support victims and survivors of human trafficking. We thank you so much for all of the incredible work that you do. And Aubrey, I will turn it back to you for close out.

AUBREY LLOYD: Fantastic. Thank you, Cindy. Alright, so upcoming correspondence of the “What Next.” From OVC and program leads, information about upcoming cross-cutting onboarding and training and resources. So, if you've ever talked about wishing onboarding with different, OVC has listened to that and that's directly going to be shown to you upcoming here pretty soon. 

From OVC Grant Managers. Any questions related to budget and program revisions, that's going to be coming directly from them. And again, as Cindy just talked about, there's several TTA providers, some that are specifically assigned to your award type. And again, we're going to be reaching out to you as well. And if you have not heard from us yet, do not panic. You will hear from us, I promise. If maybe you're looking here and be like, I don't have a date for what I'm supposed to be meeting next. Don't worry, we're going to get the information to you as well. 

So again, this is all additional ways to connect and stay connected, and you will have plenty of opportunities to meet everyone and get more information about how to best support you and also the things that we are able to offer as a TTA provider. Lots of great people and resources here for you as well, and many are in the chat today as well. Thank you all for joining us today. 

Alright, so we won. We don't do the back button in JustGrants. We learned that we're winning. We learned that we have many hats, including cat herder. We have lots of fall treats; if you're not sure what to do for your staff retreat or your staff time, we have several options. We have many things that we can do and support you. You have a recording with lots of links. Lots of resources, so on behalf of all of the other OVC Taper writers, here on behalf of OVC I would just like to say thank you so much for joining us today. You guys hung in with lots of information, lots of slides, lots of going in and out of different systems. And again, we are so excited to work along—walk alongside all of you and work with you this year. It's one of my favorite times of the year to get to know, existing grantees and new folks.

So, thank you again. Have a fantastic rest of your day. And again, all of the resources, the links, the questions, all of this information will come up in a follow up email in the next coming weeks. Thank you again. Be well and have a great rest of your week.