Youth Mentoring Refugee Support Services Set-Aside: FY 2025 Allocation

January 8, 2025
Revised January 14, 2025

Dear Colleague:

ORR will issue Youth Mentoring (YM) funding to States and Replacement Designees (RDs) funded to administer Refugee Support Services (RSS) as a “set-aside” within the fiscal year (FY) 2025¹ RSS formula Refugee and Entrant Assistance (REA) allocation. This Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) explains ORR’s method of determining YM FY 2025 allocations and details the funding amounts, contingent on the availability of federal funds. Program goals, services, eligible populations, and requirements are described in ORR Policy Letter (PL) 22-09, Youth Mentoring Program (PDF).

Qualification for FY 2025 Allocations

This is the first year of a three-year qualification period for the YM program. States and RDs that had 40 or more ORR-eligible individuals, aged 15-24, who arrived/were served in their state during FY 2022 and FY 2023, as shown below, qualify for funding. States and RDs that qualify for funding will remain eligible to receive funding for through FY 2027.

Basis for Funding

The FY 2025 allocations are based on the number of ORR-eligible individuals, aged 15-24, using a two-year lookback of eligible populations. ORR combines arrived/served data submitted in the ORR-5 report and matched against a number of federal sources for FY 2022 and FY 2023. Individuals are only counted once during this two-year lookback period. This includes initial arrival Refugees, Iraqi and Afghan Special Immigrants (SIVs), Victims of Human Trafficking (VOT), humanitarian parolees from Afghanistan (AHP), humanitarian parolees from Ukraine (UHP), Cuban and Haitian Entrants (CHE), and Asylees. ORR used this two-year lookback period to determine RSS allocations, providing a level of stability to maintain effective administration of the funds.

FY 2025 Allocations Chart

The chart below documents the number of eligible individuals who arrived/were served in each state in FY 2022 and FY 2023 and the State or RD’s corresponding funding allocation for the YM program for FY 2024. As required under ORR regulation 45 C.F.R. §400.210 , these funds must be obligated by September 30, 2026, and liquidated by September 30, 2027.

Explanation of Allocations

FY 2025 allocations fall into the following three tiers:

1. A maximum funding tier for states that had more than 10,000 individuals arrived/served, which was further broken down to:
   1. More than 20,000 eligible individuals ($3,250,000)
   2. 10,000-20,000 eligible individuals ($1,800,000)
2. A per capita funding tier for states that had arrivals/served between 750-9,999 eligible individuals; and
3. A lower funding tier for states that had arrivals/served of fewer than 750 eligible individuals, which was further broken down to:
   1. 251-749 eligible individuals ($115,000)
   2. 151-250 eligible individuals ($92,000)
   3. 120-150 eligible individuals ($80,000)
   4. Fewer than 120 eligible individuals ($67,000)

The goal of the tiered system is to ensure that States and RDs with similar numbers of ORR-eligible populations arrived/served receive comparable funding, and States and RDs with fewer individuals arrived/served have sufficient funding for program sustainability. Please note that although this allocation is based on ORR-eligible individuals arrived/served for FY 2022 and FY 2023, the population eligible for services includes all arrivals for the past five-year period.

Resources

Please direct any questions about this DCL or the YM program to your ORR Regional Representative, Regional Analyst or ORR’s Division of Refugee Assistance, at DRAprograms@acf.hhs.gov. We also encourage you to use ORR’s Technical Assistance provider(s) for additional resources.

Sincerely,

Kenneth Tota
Bureau Chief, Refugee Program Bureau
Office of Refugee Resettlement

Footnotes

¹ October 1, 2024, through September 30, 2025.