A $1.5 million federal grant will make Jacksonville the natinal home of a private-public partnership to improve the way girls and young women are treated in the juvenile justice system.

The NCCD Center for Girls and Women announced on Thursday it will receive the three-year grant to establish the National Girls Institute.

The institute will provide training and programs improving the treatment of female delinquents for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, a division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

"It is an expansion of the work we are already doing," but on a larger scale and in partnership with the federal government, said Lawanda Ravoira, director of the Jacksonville-based center that received the grant.

The center is part of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency, a nonprofit based in Oakland, Calif. The center provides training, professional resources and develops programs designed to correct disparities in the treatment of young females in the juvenile justice system, Ravoira said.

It was established in 2008 with $1 million in grants from the Jacksonville-based Jessie Ball duPont Fund.

Fund President Sherry Magill said she was "ecstatic" to learn the center had attracted federal attention and money with its work because it will improve the treatment of at-risk girls.

The new institute will help "retrain people ... so those girls are treated better and have a better opportubnity for success when they enter adulthood," Magill said.

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency chose Jacksonville as the home for its Center for Girls and Women because government and nonprofit leaders in Duval County had been studying ways to improve the treatment and condition of female delinquents in the juvenile justice system for several years, Ravoira said.

Ravoira testified before Congress in 2008 about the inferior treatment of girls in the nation's juvenile justice system and about the need for such programs on the federal level.

The center will begin hiring staff -- Ravoira said she's not yet sure how many -- in November. That's also when the new National Girls Institute will begin its first project, which will be a national study.

The institute's location here will boost the city's status in juvenile justice issues, Magill said.

"It puts Jacksonville on the map as a place that is progressive, that is innovative in developing new programs ... for people who work with these kids," Magill said.

jeff.brumley@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4310

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2010-10-15/story/grant-help-set-...