Established in 2009 through funding from the Massachusetts Department of Youth Services (DYS), the Community Reentry Grant (CRG) initiative provides community-oriented activities that support positive youth development for DYS clients.

The Community Reentry Grants support the successful transition and reentry of DYS clients by providing services for education, arts, mentoring, training and workforce development that are tailored to DYS clients’ unique strengths and interests.

The range of activities that these grants support includes:

• Direct services that meet the career readiness, pre-employment and employment needs of youth in the custody of DYS;
• Direct services that support pre-GED, customized tutoring directed at improving literacy skills, and programming that enables youth to obtain their GED;
• Programming for  a range of out of school time experiences such as mentoring, community service learning, leadership and advocacy training, arts and cultural opportunities;
• Work-based learning opportunities including internships, entrepreneurship training; and
• Stipends or tuition to support one or more youth within a targeted training program (such as YouthBuild or Job Corp).

Download an overview on our Community Reentry Grant Initiative.

View the Bridging the Opportunity Gap and Community Reentry Grant grantees.