OJJDP FY25 Post-Secondary Education Opportunities for Child Protection Professionals | O OJJDP 2025 172457

Opportunity Information: Apply for O OJJDP 2025 172457

The OJJDP FY25 Post-Secondary Education Opportunities for Child Protection Professionals grant is a discretionary federal funding opportunity from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). It is offered as a cooperative agreement, which generally means the agency expects to be actively involved with recipients during the life of the award through collaboration, oversight, and shared responsibility for key program decisions. The opportunity falls under the Law, Justice and Legal Services activity area (CFDA 16.758) and is aimed at strengthening the child protection workforce by expanding and improving education and training pathways connected to child advocacy and mandated reporting.

At its core, the program is designed to fund child advocacy training delivered through post-secondary education. The NOFO emphasizes two main lanes: undergraduate programming that prepares future professionals early in their careers, and continuing education that supports advanced learning through graduate-level coursework and professional licensing-related courses. The practical intent is to build stronger, more consistent competency in recognizing, reporting, and responding to child maltreatment and related public safety and welfare concerns. By placing resources into higher education and continuing professional development, OJJDP is trying to influence both the pipeline of new mandated reporters and the ongoing skills of experienced practitioners.

The training focus is broad and intentionally multidisciplinary. The NOFO highlights child protection professionals across systems that routinely interact in child abuse and neglect cases, including law enforcement officers, social workers, medical professionals, behavioral health professionals, and prosecutors. This signals that proposals can be competitive when they reflect cross-sector realities such as coordinated investigations, trauma-informed practice, evidence handling, medical and forensic considerations, interview practices, and courtroom preparation. It also suggests an interest in improving how these professions work together, not just how each performs in isolation, since effective child protection often depends on consistent standards, shared understanding, and coordinated decision-making.

Eligibility is wide-ranging and includes multiple levels of government and a broad set of organizations that can credibly deliver education or training. Eligible applicants include state, county, city/township, and special district governments; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized tribal governments and other tribal organizations; nonprofit organizations with or without 501(c)(3) status (as long as they are not institutions of higher education, where applicable); for-profit organizations other than small businesses; and other entities. The listing also references "other units of local government," reinforcing that local public entities are welcomed as applicants or partners, particularly where they have a direct role in workforce development or professional training.

The opportunity is expected to make a very small number of awards, indicating a competitive process with relatively limited total slots. OJJDP anticipates 2 awards, with an award ceiling of $417,687 per award. The original application due date is October 21, 2025, and the opportunity was created on September 12, 2025. The funding opportunity number is O-OJJDP-2025-172457. Applicants considering this program should treat it as a targeted investment: OJJDP is looking for well-structured training approaches that can demonstrate clear workforce impact for mandated reporters and child protection professionals and that fit within a post-secondary or continuing education framework.

• The Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention in the law, justice and legal services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "OJJDP FY25 Post-Secondary Education Opportunities for Child Protection Professionals" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 16.758.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2025-09-12.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-10-21. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $417,687.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 2 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Others.

Apply for O OJJDP 2025 172457

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