The Indigenous Community Corrections Initiative (ICCI) supports alternatives to custody and reintegration projects responsive to the unique circumstances of Indigenous people in Canada. ICCI projects provide culturally relevant services that may include counselling, treatment, life skills coaching, family reunification, and addressing the effects of residential schools and involvement with child welfare systems.

The Call for Proposals for the Indigenous Community Corrections Initiative 2023 is now closed.

Overview

The Government of Canada launched the Federal Framework to Reduce Recidivism (FFRR) on June 22nd, 2022, which resulted from Private Members Bill C-228. As part of the FFRR, the Indigenous Community Corrections Initiative (ICCI), will act as an early intervention under its implementation plan. The ICCI supports alternatives to incarceration and reintegration projects responsive to the unique circumstances of Indigenous people in Canada by providing culturally relevant services that may include counselling, treatment, life skills coaching, family reunification, and addressing the effects of residential schools and involvement with child welfare systems. The ICCI will use a two-pronged approach by issuing both open and targeted calls for proposals to maximize the reach of the program by generating potential recipients and building on existing relationships.

All eligible applications received for this call will undergo a criteria-based assessment process (ICCI 2023 Call For Proposals – Application assessment tool) to ensure that applications are evaluated objectively against the same assessment criteria. Successful applicants will be required to adhere to a reporting and data collection schedule conditions and implemented projects will include an evaluation. Proposals will also be shared with Correctional Service of Canada, Parole Board Canada and Justice Canada to ensure there is no overlap or duplication.

Program objectives

The key principles listed below guide the Program in this solicitation. Applicants must apply all of these principles to their proposals when submitting a request for funding:

Public Safety Canada (PS), through the ICCI will work to:

• Facilitate and promote connections with provinces and territories;
• Conduct research and promote evidence-based best practices to reduce recidivism;
• Enhance data collection as part of the FFRR and Public Safety Quantitative Data Strategy to augment measurement of the effectiveness of correctional interventions;
• Implement approaches that speak to the unique needs of Indigenous groups who are overrepresented in the criminal justice system;
• Assess the unique needs of gender diverse Indigenous offenders to best support their unique needs and apply a trauma-informed approach; and
• Integrate the needs of victims in its approaches.

The ICCI will provide contribution funding to eligible recipients to develop tailored approaches that address gaps in services to Indigenous clients with the overall program objectives being:

• To support the development of alternatives to incarceration; and/or 
• To provide reintegration support. 

N.B. Funding applications that seek 5-year implementation funding will be asked to collect additional data for research and evaluation that will contribute to the knowledge base of what works for Indigenous offenders. The data collected will be used for sharing best practices and knowledge development, as well as tailoring the ICCI program to better support Indigenous-led efforts in delivering culturally appropriate services.

This research is not intended to evaluate individual recipients or the services they offer but to gain knowledge that will be shared broadly to provide communities and organizations with concrete examples of approaches that have had positive outcomes. To name a few examples, these approaches may consist of delivering counselling, addiction treatment, life skills coaching, family reunification, mental health support, etc.

Presently there is insufficient research and evaluation data to support the determination of efficacy of programs undertaken by organizations working with justice-involved individuals to develop and reinforce pro-social behaviours thereby reducing recidivism.

In the event that an insufficient number of applications are submitted that are designed specifically to address priority areas (e.g., women-centred, 2SLGBTQI+) Public Safety will undertake a targeted call for proposals to organizations working with underserved populations.

For full details click on the following link:

https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/cntrng-crm/crrctns/cmmnt-crrctns-nttv-en.aspx