Notice2021-26913
Proposed Information Collection Activity; Regional Partnership Grants National Cross-Site Evaluation and Evaluation Technical Assistance (OMB #0970-0527)
Primary source
Metadata and text below are from the Federal Register, a public-domain U.S. government work. Always verify the official published version before relying on it for any legal matter.
Published
December 13, 2021
Issuing agencies
Health and Human Services DepartmentChildren and Families Administration
Abstract
The Children's Bureau (CB), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is requesting an extension with minor changes to the approved information collection: Regional Partnership Grants National Cross-Site Evaluation and Evaluation Technical Assistance (OMB #0970-0527). The proposed information collection will be used in a national cross-site evaluation of the fifth and sixth cohorts of CB's Regional Partnership Grants (RPG). The cross-site evaluation will use surveys, interviews, progress reports, and data on participant enrollment, services, and outcomes.
Full Text
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<title>Federal Register, Volume 86 Issue 236 (Monday, December 13, 2021)</title>
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[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 236 (Monday, December 13, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 70844-70845]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [<a href="http://www.gpo.gov">www.gpo.gov</a>]
[FR Doc No: 2021-26913]
[[Page 70844]]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Administration for Children and Families
Proposed Information Collection Activity; Regional Partnership
Grants National Cross-Site Evaluation and Evaluation Technical
Assistance (OMB #0970-0527)
AGENCY: Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families,
HHS.
ACTION: Request for public comment.
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SUMMARY: The Children's Bureau (CB), Administration for Children and
Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is
requesting an extension with minor changes to the approved information
collection: Regional Partnership Grants National Cross-Site Evaluation
and Evaluation Technical Assistance (OMB #0970-0527). The proposed
information collection will be used in a national cross-site evaluation
of the fifth and sixth cohorts of CB's Regional Partnership Grants
(RPG). The cross-site evaluation will use surveys, interviews, progress
reports, and data on participant enrollment, services, and outcomes.
DATES: Comments due within 60 days of publication. In compliance with
the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, ACF is
soliciting public comment on the specific aspects of the information
collection described above.
ADDRESSES: Copies of the proposed collection of information can be
obtained and comments may be forwarded by emailing
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#83eaede5ece0ecefefe6e0f7eaecedc3e2e0e5adebebf0ade4ecf5"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="6801060e070b0704040d0b1c01070628090b0e4600001b460f071e">[email protected]</span></a>. Alternatively, copies can also be obtained
by writing to the Administration for Children and Families, Office of
Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), 330 C Street SW, Washington,
DC 20201, Attn: ACF Reports Clearance Officer. All requests, emailed or
written, should be identified by the title of the information
collection.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Description: The Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006
(Pub. L. 109-288) amended section 437 of the Social Security Act (42
U.S.C. 629g(f)) and authorized CB to fund discretionary grants to
improve safety, well-being, and permanency outcomes for children at
risk of or in out-of-home placement because of their caregiver's
substance misuse. In response, HHS launched a competitive grants
program called ``Targeted Grants to Increase the Well-Being of, and to
Improve the Permanency Outcomes for, Children Affected by
Methamphetamine and Other Substance Abuse,'' which is also known as the
RPG program. Reauthorized in 2011 and again most recently by the
Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (Pub. L. 115-123) in 2018, these grants
are designed to support partnerships between child welfare agencies,
substance use disorder treatment organizations, and other social
services systems, and thereby improve the well-being, permanency, and
safety outcomes of children and families. Under four prior rounds of
RPG, CB has issued 91 grants to organizations such as child welfare or
substance use treatment providers or family court systems to develop
interagency collaborations and integration of programs, activities, and
services designed to increase well-being, improve permanency, and
enhance the safety of children who are in an out-of-home placement or
at risk of being placed in out-of-home care as a result of a parent's
or caretaker's substance misuse. In 2018 CB awarded 10 grants in a
fifth cohort (RPG5) and 9 additional grants in a sixth cohort (RPG6) in
2019. The current information collection request (ICR) is for data
collection activities associated with the 18 grantees in the fifth and
sixth cohorts. The first three cohorts were included in previous ICRs
(OMB Control Numbers 0970-0353 and 0970-0444), and the fourth cohort
was covered in the previous 3-year clearance under this ICR (OMB #0970-
0527).
The RPG cross-site evaluation will extend our understanding of the
types of programs and services grantees provided to participants, how
grantees leveraged their partnerships to coordinate services for
children and families, how grantees plan to sustain their programs
after their grants end, and the outcomes for children and families
enrolled in RPG programs. First, the cross-site evaluation will assess
the coordination of partners' service systems (e.g., shared participant
data, joint staff training) to better understand how partners'
collaborative efforts affected the services offered to families
(partnerships analysis). The cross-site evaluation will also focus on
the partnership between the child welfare and substance use treatment
agencies to add to the research base about how these agencies can
collaborate to address the needs of children and families affected by
substance misuse. Second, the evaluation will describe the
characteristics of participants served by RPG programs, the types of
services provided to families, the dosage of each type of service
received by families, and the level of participant engagement with the
services provided (enrollment and services analysis). Third, the
evaluation will describe supports within the partnership that can help
improve and sustain RPG services, such as continuous use of data for
service improvement, identification of a lead organization, and
policies, resources, and funding sources that will be needed after
grant funding ends. Finally, the evaluation will assess the outcomes of
children and adults served through the RPG program, such as child
behavioral problems, adult depressive symptoms, or adult substance use
and treatment (outcomes and impacts analysis).
The evaluation is being undertaken by CB and its contractor
Mathematica and its subcontractor, WRMA Inc. The evaluator is required
to advise CB on the instruments grantees use to collect data from
program participants for required local evaluations. Grantees will
secure approval from their local institutional review boards for
collecting these data.
This ICR requests a renewal of clearance for the OMB package #0970-
0527, which was originally approved in May 2019, for obtaining
participant data from grantees that they collect for their local
evaluations and for directly collecting additional data from grantees
and their partners and providers for the cross-site evaluation. This
ICR requests an extension to allow more time for the information
collection and includes a revision to add the sustainability survey as
a new data collection activity. Specifically, this ICR requests
clearance for the following data collection activities: (1) Site visits
with grantees, (2) a web-based survey about grantee partnerships, (3) a
web-based survey about sustainability planning, (4) semiannual progress
reports, (5) enrollment and services data provided by grantees, and (6)
outcomes and impacts data provided by grantees.
Respondents: Respondents include grantee staff or contractors (such
as local evaluators) and partner staff. Specific types of respondents
and the expected number per data collection effort are noted in the
burden table below.
[[Page 70845]]
Annual Burden Estimates
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Number of Average burden
Total number responses per hours per Total annual
Data collection activity of respondents respondent response (in burden hours
(each year) hours)
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Site Visit and Key Informant Data Collection
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Program director individual interview........... 8 0.33 2 5
Program manager/supervisor individual interviews 8 0.33 1 3
Frontline staff interviews...................... 16 0.33 1 5
Partner representative interviews............... 24 0.33 1 8
Partner survey.................................. 40 0.33 0.42 6
Sustainability survey........................... 126 0.42 0.33 18
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Enrollment, client and service data
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Semi-annual progress reports.................... 18 2 16.5 594
Case enrollment data............................ 54 33 0.25 446
Case closure.................................... 54 33 0.0167 30
Case closure--prenatal.......................... 18 10 0.01672 3
Service log entries............................. 108 1,560 0.033 5,560
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Outcome and impact data
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Administrative Data:
Obtain access to administrative data........ 18 1 41 738
Report administrative data.................. 18 2 144 5,184
Standardized instruments:
Enter data into local database.............. 18 100 .625 1,125
Review records and submit................... 18 2 25 900
Data entry for comparison study sites (16 16 100 .625 1,000
grantees)..................................
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Estimated Total Burden Hours............ .............. .............. .............. 15,625
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Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 15,625.
Comments: The Department specifically requests comments on (a)
whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the
proper performance of the functions of the agency, including whether
the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the
agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of
information; (c) the quality, utility, and clarity of the information
to be collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection
of information on respondents, including through the use of automated
collection techniques or other forms of information technology.
Consideration will be given to comments and suggestions submitted
within 60 days of this publication.
Authority: The Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006
(Pub. L. 109-288) created the competitive RPG program. The September
30, 2011, passage of the Child and Family Services Improvement and
Innovation Act (Pub. L. 112-34) extended funding for the RPG program
from federal fiscal year (FFY) 2012 to FFY 2016. In 2018, the president
signed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (Pub. L. 115-123) into law
reauthorizing the RPG program through FFY 2021 and added a focus on
opioid abuse.
Mary B. Jones,
ACF/OPRE Certifying Officer.
[FR Doc. 2021-26913 Filed 12-10-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4184-29-P
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