Birmingham to Expand Youth Violence Prevention Program with Nearly $2 Million Federal Grant

By Keisa Sharpe-Jefferson | For The Birmingham Times The Birmingham City Council this week voted to give nearly $2 million from a federal grant to expand a local violence prevention program. The majority of the Department of Justice grant will go to the Jefferson County Family Resource Center (JCFRC) to expand the age range for its RESTORE program, which offers mental health and case management services to Birmingham youths. The initiative currently serves children aged 15 to 19, but the grant will allow officials to expand the program to include children as young as 11. Carrie Buntain, Executive Director of JCFRC and a former Alabama Assistant Attorney General, told the council that the RESTORE program — which stands for Reduce, Educate, Support, Train, Organize, Realize, Empower — celebrated a year of operation this month and has served more than 700 young people through its workshops. “We opened up the workshops to younger individuals and probably about 20-to-25 percent of our participants and workshops are in this (younger) age range,” she said. Buntain added, “We did just complete our 11-to-15-year-old needs assessments with 21 kids from seven of the housing communities in partnership with HABD (Housing Authority Birmingham Division) and BPD...