National Institute of Corrections: Correctional Industries Leadership Training – Curriculum Update Grant

Through this cooperative agreement, NIC seeks to 1) provide correctional administrators with a fully developed virtual instructor-led format training curriculum based on the Instructional Theory Into Practice (ITIP) model, and 2) develop a pre/post assessment tool to evaluate the mastery of established competencies, knowledge and skills, and 3) identify options to providing professional certification and continuing education units for the training participants. Extracted from the processes and methodology depicted in NIC staffing analysis resources, the staffing analysis VILT curriculum was developed with distinct advantages for the participating agencies over the in-class delivery method. The staffing analysis process can be time-consuming and daunting for new or inexperienced analysts. As with most things, practical experience is the best instructor.  Due to the natural time constraints of in-class training, NIC’ s in-class curriculums offer a brief practical exercise involving most of the staffing analysis processes. Participants finish the course with a good idea of the process, but it is a condensed version that cannot replicate the experience of participating in a staffing analysis from start to finish. Unlike the in-class curriculum, the NIC staffing analysis VILT training program provides participating agencies with step-by-step instruction and actual completion of a staffing analysis over the course of the training engagement. Applicants are strongly encouraged to use instructers that have not previously facilitated the NIC staffing analysis program and will receive additional consideration in the review process. This will enable NIC to increase the base number of instructors available.NIC has historically provided the Correctional Industries Leadership Training in a blended curriculum format. To continue to offer this valuable training under the current limitations associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, NIC seeks to develop a virtual instructor-led format training curriculum.  In addition to the research and development of recommendations for updates and revisions to the existing curriculum, an applicant that describes within their proposal a new, innovative, and dynamic delivery method for the curriculum will be considered more favorably than the applicant that does not.

NIC welcomes applications that involve two or more entities; however, one eligible entity must be the applicant and the others must be proposed as subrecipients. The applicant must be the entity with primary responsibility for administering the funding and managing the entire program.