[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 75 (Tuesday, April 19, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 22981-22983]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-08979]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Administration for Children and Families


Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

    Title: Child Support Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration 
(CSPED)
    OMB No.: 0970-439.
    Description: The Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) within 
the Administration for Child and Families at the U.S. Department of 
Health and Human Services seeks an extension without change for an 
existing data collection called the Child Support Noncustodial Parent 
Employment Demonstration (CSPED) through September 30, 2018 (OMB no. 
0970-439; expiration date September 30, 2016). Under CSPED, OCSE has 
issued grants to eight state child support agencies to provide 
employment, parenting, and child support services to parents who are 
having difficulty meeting their child support obligations. The overall 
objective of the CSPED evaluation is to document and evaluate the 
effectiveness of the approaches taken by these eight CSPED grantees. 
This evaluation will yield information about effective strategies for 
improving child support payments by providing non-custodial parents 
employment and other services through child support programs. It will 
generate extensive information on how these programs operated, what 
they cost, the effects the programs had, and whether the benefits of 
the programs exceed their costs. The information gathered will be 
critical to informing decisions related to future investments in child 
support-led employment-focused programs for non-custodial parents who 
have difficulty meeting their child support obligations.
    The CSPED evaluation consists of the following two interconnected 
components or ``studies'':
    1. Implementation and Cost Study. The goal of the implementation 
and cost study is to provide a detailed description of the programs--
how they are implemented, their participants, the contexts in which 
they are operated, their promising practices, and their costs. The 
detailed descriptions will

[[Page 22982]]

assist in interpreting program impacts, identifying program features 
and conditions necessary for effective program replication or 
improvement, and carefully documenting the costs of delivering these 
services. Key data collection activities of the implementation and cost 
study include: (1) Conducting semi-structured interviews with program 
staff and selected community partner organizations to gather 
information on program implementation and costs; (2) conducting focus 
groups with program participants to elicit participation experiences; 
(3) administering a web-based survey to program staff and community 
partners to capture broader staff program experiences; and (4) 
collecting data on study participant service use, dosage, and duration 
of enrollment throughout the demonstration using a web-based Management 
Information System (MIS). Two of these collection activities will be 
completed before the requested extension period begins. They include 
the focus groups and the web-based survey of program staff and 
community partners.
    2. Impact Study. The goal of the impact study is to provide 
rigorous estimates of the effectiveness of the eight programs using an 
experimental research design. Program applicants who are eligible for 
CSPED services are randomly assigned to either a program group that is 
offered program services or a control group. The study MIS that 
documents service use for the implementation study is also being used 
by grantee staff to conduct random assignment for the impact study. The 
impact study relies on data from surveys of participants, as well as 
administrative records from state and county data systems. Survey data 
are collected twice from program applicants. Baseline information is 
collected from all noncustodial parents who apply for the program prior 
to random assignment. A follow-up survey is collected from sample 
members twelve months after random assignment. A wide range of measures 
are collected through surveys, including measures of employment 
stability and quality, barriers to employment, parenting and co-
parenting, and demographic and socio-economic characteristics. In 
addition, data on child support obligations and payments, Temporary 
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Supplemental Nutrition 
Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, Medicaid receipt, involvement with 
the criminal justice system, and earnings and benefit data collected 
through the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system are obtained from state 
and county databases.
    Respondents: Respondents to these activities include study 
participants, grantee staff and community partners, as well as state 
and county staff responsible for extracting data from government 
databases for the evaluation. Specific respondents per instrument are 
noted in the burden table below.

Annual Burden Estimates

    The following table provides the burden estimates for the 
implementation and cost study and the impact study components of the 
current request. The requested extension period is estimated to be two 
years and three months, from July 1, 2016 to September 30, 2018. Thus, 
burden hours for all components are annualized over two years and three 
months.

                                          Implementation and Cost Study
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                             Average     Estimated      Total
                                            Total  number     Number of       burden       total        annual
                Instrument                       of         responses per   hours per      burden       burden
                                             respondents     respondent      response      hours        hours
                                              remaining       remaining     remaining    remaining    remaining
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff interview topic guide with program              120               1            1          120           53
 staff and community partners............
Study MIS for grantee and partner staff               200          468.75       0.0333        3,125        1,390
 to track program participation..........
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


                                                  Impact Study
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                             Average     Estimated      Total
                                            Total  number     Number of       burden       total        annual
                Instrument                       of         responses per   hours per      burden       burden
                                             respondents     respondent      response      hours        hours
                                              remaining       remaining     remaining    remaining    remaining
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introductory Script for Program Staff....             120               9        .1667          180           80
Introductory Script for Program                     1,050               1        .1667          175           78
 Participants............................
Baseline Survey..........................           1,000               1        .5833          583          259
Study MIS to Conduct Random Assignment...             120               9        .1667          180           80
Protocol for collecting administrative                 32               1            8          256          114
 records.................................
12-month follow-up survey................           1,476               1         0.75        1,107          492
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 2,546.
    Additional Information: Copies of the proposed collection may be 
obtained by writing to the Administration for Children and Families, 
Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, 330 C Street SW., 
Washington DC 20201. Attention Reports Clearance Officer. All requests 
should be identified by the title of the information collection. Email 
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 
information collection should be sent directly to the following: Office 
of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project, Email: 
[email protected], Attn: Desk Officer for the

[[Page 22983]]

Administration of Children and Families.

Robert Sargis,
Reports Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 2016-08979 Filed 4-18-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4184-01-P