With a $450,000 federal grant in hand, Montgomery County is one step closer to a Youth Opportunities Center that would add to its arsenal for beating back the growing number and influence of upcounty gangs.

The grant from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs and Bureau of Justice Assistance will pay for the center to serve Gaithersburg, Germantown and Montgomery Village, focusing on ages 16- to 22-year-olds directly involved in gangs or at high risk for joining one.

The Montgomery County Council is set for a public hearing Tuesday before adding the $450,000 appropriation to its fiscal 2010 budget. That approval would clear the way for the county's Department of Health and Human Services to choose a nonprofit or private organization to run the center. HHS hopes to put out a request for proposals later this month and choose a vendor in January. Finding and paying for the site will be up to the vendor.

Barring any delays, the center could open in early spring, said Kate Garvey, HHS's chief of children, youth and family services.

The center will anchor the upcounty intervention piece of the suppression-intervention-prevention strategy laid out in the county's Positive Youth Development Initiative, a multi-agency collaboration to offer educational, recreational, cultural and rehabilitative programs for problem or at-risk youth.

County officials and youth advocates have been pushing for the center for years in the face of a growing gang presence upcounty. The most recent police assessment cited more than 1,200 gang members in Montgomery County.

The upcounty center would serve roughly 100 youths a year, Garvey said, and "set a tone" and help "build partnerships" among county agencies, nonprofits, schools, youth advocates and community leaders.

"It is definitely just one piece of the puzzle," Garvey said. "This is more of an intervention, but we still need to have more prevention for the kids really facing challenges, really engaged in negative behavior."

The county hopes to parallel the success seen at a similar center in Takoma Park.

The Crossroads Youth Opportunity Center offers programs for 200-plus youths per year, including GED classes, mental health counseling, legal advice, job training, social skills building and community service.

The center is seeing measurable benefits. Of the 248 youths who went to the Crossroads center between July 2008 and June 2009, 12 were arrested again, Garvey said.

The Crossroads center is run by Gaithersburg-based nonprofit Identity Inc. Identity is waiting for the request-for-proposals for the upcounty center to decide if the program will be a "good fit," said Candace Kattar, Identity's executive director.

The difference between what the upcounty center might do and what Identity does at its office in Olde Towne Gaithersburg is one of intensity, Kattar said. For example, while the Crossroads center largely handles active gang members, one in 20 of the youths that go to Identity in Gaithersburg are gang-involved or "very at-risk."