[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 6 (Monday, January 11, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 1196-1197]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-00279]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration


Agency Information Collection Activities: Proposed Collection; 
Comment Request

    In compliance with Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the Paperwork Reduction 
Act of 1995 concerning opportunity for public comment on proposed 
collections of information, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health 
Services Administration (SAMHSA) will publish periodic summaries of 
proposed projects. To request more information on the proposed projects 
or to obtain a copy of the information collection plans, call the 
SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer on (240) 276-1243.
    Comments are invited on: (a) Whether the proposed collections of 
information are 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) ways to enhance 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.

Proposed Project: Survey of Current and Alumni SAMHSA Fellows of the 
Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) (OMB No. 0930-0304)--REVISION

    SAMHSA is requesting approval from the Office of Management and 
Budget (OMB) to revise the collection of surveys of current and alumni 
MFP fellows to include current and alumni fellows from the Now Is The 
Time-MFP-Youth (NITT-MFP-Y) and NITT-MFP-Addiction Counselors (NITT-
MFP-AC) grant programs. These surveys would gather information about 
current and alumni fellows in all three programs that will help SAMHSA 
meet its responsibilities under the Government Performance and Results 
Modernization Act for gathering, analyzing, and interpreting 
information about government-funded programs such as the MFP, the NITT-
MFP-Y, and the NITT-MFP-AC.
    In 1973, in response to a substantial lack of ethnic and racial 
minorities in the mental health professions, the Center for Minority 
Health at the National Institute of Mental Health established the MFP. 
Since its move to SAMHSA in 1992, the MFP has continued to facilitate 
the entry of graduate students and psychiatric residents into mental 
health careers and has increased the number of psychology, psychiatry, 
nursing, and social work professionals trained to provide mental health 
and substance abuse services to minority groups. In 2014, funds were 
appropriated to expand the traditional MFP to include two programs to 
support the President's NITT initiative: NITT-MFP-Y and NITT-MFP-AC. 
These programs provide stipends and tuition support to students 
pursuing master's level training in behavioral health fields like 
psychology, social work, professional counseling, marriage and family 
therapy, nursing, and addiction/substance abuse counseling, thus 
directly supporting the NITT goal of increasing behavioral health 
services for youth and contributing to making schools safer. The 
traditional MFP offers sustained grants to six national behavioral 
health professional

[[Page 1197]]

associations: The American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy 
(AAMFT), the American Nurses Association (ANA), the American 
Psychiatric Association (ApA), the American Psychological Association 
(APA), the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), and the National 
Board for Certified Counselors and Affiliates (NBCC). The grantees for 
the NITT-MFP-Y program are the AAFMT, ANA, APA, CSWE, and NBCC, and the 
grantees for the NITT-MFP-AC program are the NAADAC--Association for 
Addiction Professionals and NBCC.
    This package includes two survey instruments, the Current SAMHSA 
MFP Fellows survey and the MFP Alumni survey, which have previously 
been administered to current and alumni fellows of the traditional MFP 
grant program. SAMHSA is requesting approval from OMB to include 
respondents (i.e., fellows) from the NITT-MFP-Y and NITT-MFP-AC 
programs and to add 13 and 10 questions to the Current SAMHSA MFP 
Fellows and MFP Alumni surveys, respectively. Although the aims of the 
traditional MFP and the NITT-MFPs are similar, some aspects of the 
NITT-MFPs are unique. For example, the focus on master's-level students 
(versus doctoral) and on providing culturally competent behavioral 
health services specifically to youth and transition-aged young adults. 
Thus, approval is requested to add questions to the surveys to ensure 
that the information needed to evaluate the NITT-MFPs is captured. The 
surveys will include appropriate skip patterns so that traditional MFP 
fellows are not asked questions that do not apply to them.
    The two online surveys (with the option for a hard copy mailed 
through the U.S. Postal Service) will be used with the following 
stakeholders in the MFP grant programs:

    1. Current SAMHSA MFP Fellows (n=428)
    a. Current traditional MFP Fellows currently receiving support 
during their doctoral-level training or psychiatric residency will 
be asked about their experiences in the MFP (from recruitment into 
the program through their participation in the various activities 
provided by the grantees).
    b. Current NITT-MFP-Y and NITT-MFP-AC Fellows currently 
receiving support during the final year of their master's programs 
in behavioral health or related field will be asked about their 
experiences in the MFP (from recruitment into the program through 
their participation in the various activities provided by the 
grantees).
    2. MFP Alumni (n=1,440)
    a. Traditional MFP Alumni who participated in the MFP during the 
time the program was administered by SAMHSA will be asked about 
their previous experiences as fellows in the MFP and also about 
their subsequent involvement and leadership in their professions.
    b. NITT-MFP-Y and NITT-MFP-AC Alumni who participated in the MFP 
during their master's program will be asked about their previous 
experiences as fellows in the MFP and also about their subsequent 
involvement and leadership in their professions.

The information gathered by these two surveys will be used to gain 
insights into, and to document, impacts that the MFP has had and is 
having on current and former MFP fellows, and contributions and impacts 
that the current and former fellows are making in their work. The 
surveys include questions to assess the following measures: Completion 
of the fellowship program (e.g., completion of MFP goals, number of 
mentors, total mentored hours); post-fellowship employment (e.g., 
employment types and fields, targeted service populations); increase in 
skills/knowledge (e.g., number of certifications obtained, number of 
continuing education hours); and contributions to the field (e.g., 
number of professional publications).
    The survey data will also be utilized in an evaluation of the NITT-
MFP programs. The requested additional questions will allow the 
evaluation to assess the overall success of the SAMHSA NITT initiative 
in enhancing the behavioral health workforce in terms of the number of 
master's level behavioral health specialists trained with MFP support, 
their competencies and characteristics, and their capacity to meet 
behavioral health workforce needs. The evaluation will also explore 
whether the program results in increased knowledge, skills, and 
aptitude among NITT-MFP fellows to provide culturally competent 
behavioral health services to underserved, at risk children, 
adolescents, and transition-age youth (ages 16-25); and how these new 
behavioral health professionals are sustained in the workforce.
    The total annual burden estimate for conducting the surveys is 
shown below:

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                                     Number of     Responses per   Total number      Hours per     Total burden
           Survey name              respondents     respondent     of responses      response          hours
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SAMHSA MFP Current Fellows                   428               1             428            0.42             180
 Survey.........................
SAMHSA MFP Alumni Survey........           1,440               1           1,440            0.75           1,080
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    Totals......................       \a\ 1,868  ..............           1,868  ..............           1,260
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\a\ This is an unduplicated count of total respondents.

    Send comments to Summer King, SAMHSA Reports Clearance Officer, 
Room 2-1057, One Choke Cherry Road, Rockville, MD 20857 or email a copy 
at [email protected]. Written comments should be received by 
March 11, 2016.

Summer King,
Statistician.
[FR Doc. 2016-00279 Filed 1-8-16; 8:45 am]
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