[Federal Register Volume 72, Number 162 (Wednesday, August 22, 2007)]
[Notices]
[Pages 47053-47055]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: E7-16537]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities: Submission for OMB 
Review; Comment Request

    Periodically, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services 
Administration (SAMHSA) will publish a summary of information 
collection requests under OMB review, in compliance with the Paperwork 
Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. Chapter 35). To request a copy of these 
documents, call the SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer on (240) 276-1243.

Project: Independent Evaluation of the Community Mental Health Services 
Block Grant Program--NEW

    The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 
(SAMHSA), the Center for Mental Health Services (CMHS) administers the 
Community Mental Health Services Block Grant (CMHS BG). The Community 
Mental Health Services Block Grant was funded by Congress to develop 
community-based systems of care for adults with serious mental illness 
(SMI) and children with severe emotional disorders (SED), and has been 
the largest Federal program dedicated to improving community mental 
health services. States have latitude in determining how to spend their 
funds to support services for adults with SMI and children with SED. 
The only requirements outlined in the authorizing legislation for State 
receipt of CMHS BG funds are provisions to increase children's 
services, create a State mental health planning council, and to develop 
a State mental health plan to be submitted to the Secretary of Health 
and Human Services (HHS). The State mental health planning council is 
to comprise various State constituents including providers, 
administrators, and mental health services consumers. Each State plan 
must:
     Provide for the establishment and implementation of an 
organized community-based system of care for individuals with mental 
illness.
     Estimate the incidence and prevalence of adults with SMI 
and children with SED within the State.
     Provide for a system of integrated services appropriate 
for the multiple needs of children.
     Provide for outreach to and services for rural and 
homeless populations.
     Describe the financial and other resources necessary to 
implement the plan and describe how the CMHS BG funds are to be spent.
    In addition, Congress included a maintenance-of-effort (MOE) 
requirement that a State's expenditures for community mental health 
services be no less than the average spent in the two preceding fiscal 
years.
    The CMHS BG received an adequate rating on the OMB PART in 2003. 
Clearly in the follow up period to that assessment, one of the critical 
areas that must be addressed is the expectation that an independent and 
objective evaluation of the program is to be carried out initially and 
at regular intervals. In addition, the program evaluation has been 
designed to be of high quality, sufficient scope and unbiased (with 
appropriate documentation for each of these elements). In fact it is in 
addressing an evaluation of the program that critical elements of 
accountability and program performance are also identified and 
initially assessed. The rigor of the evaluation is seen in how it 
addresses the effectiveness of the program's impact with regard to its 
mission and long term goals. By legislative design the CMHS BG Program 
has previously focused on legislative compliance. Now it addresses the 
impact of the program nationally, over time, with a view to coming to 
terms with identified program deficiencies and the corresponding impact 
of proposed changes.
    In this evaluation, a multi-method evaluation approach is being 
used to examine Federal and State performance with regard to the CMHS 
BG and its identified goals. This approach emphasizes a qualitative and 
quantitative examination of both the CMHS BG process (e.g., activities 
and outputs in the logic model) and system-level outcomes whereby 
Federal and State stakeholder perspectives on the CMHS BG, as captured 
through semi-structured interviews and surveys, are

[[Page 47054]]

corroborated and compared to the considerable amount of already-
collected source documents provided by States and CMHS (e.g., State 
plans, implementation reports, review summaries and monitoring site 
visit reports). More specifically, data collection will be conducted 
using four primary strategies: interviews and surveys of key 
stakeholders, data abstraction from source documents (i.e., CMHS BG 
applications and implementation reports), secondary data analysis 
(e.g., analysis of Uniform Reporting System (URS) data and National 
Outcome Measures (NOMS), and case studies highlighting important themes 
and issues relating to State CMHS BG implementation.
    This evaluation is also seeking to measure the effectiveness of the 
CMHS BG through a variety of infrastructure indicators and NOMS 
measures. Infrastructure refers to the resources, systems, and policies 
that support the nation's public mental health service delivery system, 
and is a potential contributor to significant State behavioral health 
system outcomes. Examples of infrastructure include staff training, 
consumer involvement in the State mental health system, policy changes, 
and service availability. Outcomes related to infrastructure and the 
NOMS were included in the program logic model that has been developed 
and are expected to be examined through the data collection strategies 
listed above.
    Infrastructure indicators that can be measured in this evaluation, 
for which some form of data can be collected include:
     Range of available services within a State.
     Capacity (No. of persons served).
     Specialized services (such as co-occurring disorders).
     Number of persons served by evidence-based practices 
(EBPs).
     Staff credentialing (identify patterns).
     Program accreditation (as a quality marker).
     Staff/workforce development (TA & training available for 
State staff).
     Connections with other agencies (e.g., MOUs, joint 
funding, joint appointments).
     Policy changes initiated.
     Policy changes completed.
     Consumer involvement.
    Two data collection strategies will be used for this evaluation: 
Two (2) open-ended interviews and four (4) Web-based surveys. 
Interviews will be conducted with Federal staff involved in the 
administration of the CMHS BG and State staff from all States and 
Territories involved in their State's implementation of the CMHS BG 
program. The two interview guides, one for Federal staff and one for 
State staff, range from 54 to 94 open-ended questions. The Federal 
staff interview is expected to take one hour to complete while the 
State staff interview is expected to take two hours on average to 
complete, and can be done over two sessions. Because of the relatively 
small number of Federal and State staff participating in the 
evaluation, interviews are an optimal data collection strategy to 
gather the extensive qualitative data needed for the evaluation while 
minimizing reporting burden. Federal staff stakeholders will be 
interviewed in person due to their close proximity to the interviewers 
and State staff stakeholder interviews will be conducted via conference 
call. State Mental Health Agency (SMHA) Commissioners will select those 
State staff who are knowledgeable about the CMHS BG for participation 
in the interviews. It is anticipated that, at a minimum, a State 
Planner, State Data Analyst, and the SMHA Commissioner will 
participate.
    The four (4) Web-based surveys will be distributed nationally to 
State Planning Council Chairs, State Planning Council Members, CMHS BG 
Regional Reviewers, and CMHS BG Monitoring Site Visitors. The Web-based 
surveys will be tailored so that each of the four different stakeholder 
groups will receive survey questions designed to capture their specific 
knowledge of and experience with the CMHS BG. It is estimated that any 
one individual stakeholder will require one hour to complete their own 
survey, which contains a range of 22 to 42 mostly fill-in-the blank 
type questions. Each member of the four major stakeholder groups will 
submit their responses to the survey online over a three-week period.
    Table 1 summarizes the estimate of the total time burden to Federal 
and State staff stakeholders resulting from the interviews. Table 2 
summarizes the estimate of the total time burden to Planning Council 
members, Regional Reviewers, and Monitoring Site Visitors resulting 
from completion of the web-based surveys. Table 3 summarizes the total 
reporting burden for all data collection strategies.

                               Table 1.--Estimated Reporting Burden of Interviews
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                Number of       Average hours    Estimated total
                        Respondent                             respondents      per interview    burden (hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
State Mental Health Agency Commissioner...................                59               3.5             206.5
State Planners............................................                59               3.5             206.5
State Data Analysts.......................................                59               3.5             206.5
Federal CMHS Block Grant Staff............................                20                 1              20
                                                           -----------------------------------------------------
    Total Burden..........................................               197  ................             639.5
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                            Table 2.--Estimated Reporting Burden of Web-Based Surveys
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                                                                Number of       Average hours    Estimated total
                        Respondent                             respondents       per survey      burden (hours)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Planning Council Members..................................              2000                 1              2000
Regional Block Grant Reviewers............................                35                 1                35
Monitoring Site Visitors..................................                28                 1                28
                                                           -----------------------------------------------------
    Total Burden..........................................             2,063  ................             2,063
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[[Page 47055]]


 Table 3.--Estimated Reporting Burden of All Data Collection Strategies
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                             Estimated
                 Data collection strategy                   total burden
                                                              (hours)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interviews...............................................          639.5
Web-based Surveys........................................        2,063
                                                          --------------
    Total Burden.........................................        2,702.5
------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Written comments and recommendations concerning the proposed 
information collection should be sent by September 21, 2007 to: SAMHSA 
Desk Officer, Human Resources and Housing Branch, Office of Management 
and Budget, New Executive Office Building, Room 10235, Washington, DC 
20503; due to potential delays in OMB's receipt and processing of mail 
sent through the U.S. Postal Service, respondents are encouraged to 
submit comments by fax to: 202-395-6974.

    Dated: August 13, 2007.
Elaine Parry,
Acting Director, Office of Program Services.
[FR Doc. E7-16537 Filed 8-21-07; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4162-20-P