[Federal Register Volume 69, Number 86 (Tuesday, May 4, 2004)]
[Notices]
[Pages 24604-24605]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 04-10077]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Administration for Children and Families


Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

    Title: HHS/ACF/ASPE/DOL Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ 
Demonstration and Evaluation Project Baseline Survey (Revised).
    OMB No.: 0970-0251.
    Description: The Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ 
Demonstration and Evaluation Project (HtE) is the most ambitious, 
comprehensive effort to learn what works in this area to date and is 
explicitly designed to build on previous and ongoing research by 
rigorously testing a wide variety of approaches to promote employment 
and improve family functioning and child well-being. The HtE project 
will ``conduct a multi-site evaluation that studies the implementation 
issues, program design, net impact and benefit-costs of selected 
programs'' \1\ designed to help Temporary Assistance for Needy Families 
(TANF) recipients, former TANF recipients, or low-income parents who 
are hard-to-employ. The project is sponsored by the Office of Planning, 
Research and Evaluation (OPRE) of the Administration for Children and 
Families (ACF), the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and 
Evaluation (ASPE) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 
(HHS), and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). The evaluation involves 
an experimental, random assignment design in six sites, testing a 
diverse set of strategies to promote employment for low-income parents 
who face serious obstacles to employment, including physical and mental 
health problems, substance abuse, human capital deficiencies, and 
situational barriers. As many as two of the sites included in the 
evaluation will feature ``two generation'' models, serving both parents 
and their children. Over the next several years, the HtE project will 
generate a wealth of rigorous data on implementation, effects, and 
costs of these alternatives approaches. The data collected will be used 
for the following purposes:
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    \1\ From the Department of Health and Human Services RFP No.: 
233-01-0012
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     To study the extent to which different HtE 
approaches impact employment, earnings, income, welfare dependence, and 
the presence or persistence of employment barriers;
     To collect data on a wider range of outcome 
measures than is available through Welfare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, 
Social Security, the Criminal Justice System or Unemployment Insurance 
records in order to understand the family circumstances and attributes 
and situations that contribute to the difficulties in finding 
employment; job retention and job quality; educational attainment; 
interactions with and knowledge of the HtE program; household 
composition; childcare; transportation; health care; income; physical 
and mental health problems; substance abuse; domestic violence; and 
criminal history.
     To conduct non-experimental analyses to explain 
participation decisions and provide a descriptive picture of the 
circumstances of individuals who are hard-to-employ;
     To obtain participation information important to 
the evaluation's benefit-cost component; and to obtain contact 
information for possible future follow-up, information that will be 
important to achieving high response rates for additional surveys.
    Materials for the HtE baseline survey were previously submitted to 
OMB on April 28, 2003, and were subsequently approved. The purpose of 
this revision is to introduce new instruments for the collection of 
baseline data in the mental health barriers site. Much of the 
substantive content in these instruments was included in the Mental 
Health Module and Core Survey that were approved in our original 
submission. All other instruments included in this submission remain 
unchanged since OMB approval.
    Respondents: The respondents of the baseline survey are TANF 
recipients, former TANF recipients, or low-income individuals who are 
hard-to-employ from the five states currently participating in the HtE 
project: Kansas, New York, Pennsylvania, Maine, and Rhode Island. 
Survey respondents can be grouped according to four target populations: 
ex-offenders with children; low-income parents with mental health 
barriers; populations connected to the TANF system; and programs 
working with two-generations (parents and their children). Prior to 
random assignment, basic demographic information for all survey 
respondents will be obtained wherever possible from the program's 
automated system.
    We had originally planned to administer a core set of questions via 
Audio-Computer Assisted Self Interview (ACASI-Core) to survey 
respondents in all sites. However, the revised mental health 
instruments have eliminated the need for a Core survey in this site, so 
we have reduced the number of Core survey respondents that were 
estimated in the previous OMB submission by 2,000 (the number of 
respondents originally estimated for the mental health site). The 
criminal justice site, which is the only site that has begun random 
assignment, ultimately did not implement the Core survey, using 
baseline data supplied by the program instead. However, we did not 
deduct the number of criminal justice sample members from the number of 
Core survey respondents for the purpose of comparability.
    A separate set of questions will be administered in two stages (via 
a mail-out/telephone screener and a detailed telephone interview) in 
the site operating a program aimed at survey respondents with mental 
health problems. Approximately 918 respondents will complete the full 
30 minutes of baseline data collection.
    Finally, in the two-generation sites (as many as two of the six 
sites), survey respondents will complete a two-generation survey 
administered by a Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI), in 
addition to the Core survey.

[[Page 24605]]



                                             Annual Burden Estimates
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                                                        Number of
             Instrument                 Number of     responses per    Average burden hours per    Total burden
                                       respondents     respondent              response                hours
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Audio-CASI Core....................          10,000               1  10 minutes or .17 hrs......        1,666.67
Criminal Justice Module............           2,000               1  12 minutes or .20 hrs......             400
Mental Health: One-Page Screener...           5,100               1  2 minutes or .03 hrs.......             170
Mental Health:
    Baseline.......................             612               1  10 minutes or .17 hrs......             102
    Telephone Interview............             918               1  28 minutes or .47 hrs......           428.4
Two-Generation CAPI................           4,000               1  24 minutes or .40 hrs......           1,600
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    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 4,367.07.

Additional Information

    Copies of the proposed collection may be obtained by writing to the 
Administration for Children and Families, Office of Information 
Services, 370 L'Enfant Promenade, SW., Washington, DC 20447, Attn: ACF 
Reports Clearance Officer. All requests should be identified by the 
title of the information collection: E-mail address: 
[email protected].

OMB Comment

    OMB is required to make a decision concerning the collection of 
information between 30 and 60 days after publication of this document 
in the Federal Register. Therefore, a comment is best assured of having 
its full effect if OMB receives it within 30 days of publication. 
Written comments and recommendations for the proposed informational 
collection should be sent directly to the following: Office of 
Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project, Attn: Desk Officer 
for ACF, E-mail address: [email protected].

    Dated: April 27, 2004.
Robert Sargis,
Reports Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 04-10077 Filed 5-3-04; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4184-01-M