[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 181 (Monday, September 19, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 64159-64161]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2016-22458]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Administration for Children and Families


RPG National Cross-Site Evaluation 30-Day Notice

AGENCY: Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, 
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

ACTION: Proposed Information Collection Activity; Comment Request.

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    Title: RPG National Cross-Site Evaluation and Evaluation Technical 
Assistance.
    OMB No.: 0970-0444.
    Description: The Children's Bureau within the Administration for 
Children and Families of the U.S. Department of Health and Human 
Services seeks a renewal of clearance to collect information for the 
Regional Partnership Grants to Increase the Well-being of and to 
Improve Permanency Outcomes for Children Affected by Substance Abuse 
Cross-Site Evaluation and Evaluation-Related Technical Assistance and 
Data Collection Support for Regional Partnership Grant Program Round 
Three Sites or ``RPG'' projects. Under RPG, the Children's Bureau has 
issued 21 grants to organizations such as child welfare or substance 
abuse 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 
are at risk of being placed in out-of-home care as a result of a 
parent's or caretaker's substance use dependence. The Child and Family 
Services Improvement and Innovation Act (Pub. L. 112-34) includes a 
targeted grants program (section 437(f) of the Social Security Act) 
that directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to reserve a 
specified portion of the appropriation for these Regional Partnership 
Grants, to be used to improve the well-being of children affected by 
substance abuse. The overall objective of the Cross-Site Evaluation and 
Technical Assistance projects (the RPG Cross-Site Evaluation) is to 
plan, develop, and implement a rigorous national cross-site evaluation 
of the RPG Grant Program, provide legislatively-mandated performance 
measurement, furnish evaluation-related technical assistance to the 
grantees in order to improve the quality and rigor of their local 
evaluations, and support their participation in the cross-site 
evaluation. The project will evaluate the programs and activities 
conducted through the RPG Program. The evaluation is being undertaken 
by the Children's Bureau and its contractor Mathematica Policy 
Research. The evaluation is being implemented by Mathematica Policy 
Research and its subcontractors, WRMA, Inc., and Synergy Enterprises.
    The RPG Cross-Site Evaluation includes the following components:

[[Page 64160]]

    1. Implementation and Partnership Study. The RPG cross-site 
implementation and partnership study will contribute to building the 
knowledge base about effective implementation strategies by examining 
the process of implementation in the 21 RPG projects, with a focus on 
factors shown in the research literature to be associated with quality 
implementation of evidence-based programs. This component of the study 
describes the RPG projects' target populations, selected interventions 
and their fit with the target populations, inputs to implementation, 
and actual services provided (including dosage, duration, content, 
adherence to curricula, and participant responsiveness). It examines 
the key attributes of the regional partnerships that grantees develop 
(for example, partnerships among child welfare and substance abuse 
treatment providers, social services, and family courts). It describes 
the characteristics and roles of the partner organizations, the extent 
of coordination and collaboration, and their potential to sustain the 
partnerships after the grant ends. Key data collection activities of 
the implementation and partnership study are: (1) Conducting site 
visits during which researchers interview RPG program directors, 
managers, supervisors, and frontline staff who work directly with 
families; (2) administering a survey to frontline staff involved in 
providing direct services to children, adults, and families; (3) asking 
grantees to provide information about implementation and their 
partnerships as part of their federally required semi-annual progress 
reports; (4) obtaining service use data from grantees, enrollment date 
and demographics of enrollees, exit date and reason, and service 
participation, which are entered into a web-based system operated by 
Mathematica Policy Research and its subcontractors; and (5) 
administering a survey to representatives of the partner organizations.
    2. Outcomes Study. The goal of the outcomes study is to describe 
the changes that occur in children and families who participate in the 
RPG programs. This study will describe participant outcomes in five 
domains: (1) Child well-being, (2) family functioning/stability, (3) 
adult recovery from substance use disorder, (4) child permanency, and 
(5) child safety. Two main types of outcome data will be used--both of 
which are being collected by RPG grantees: (1) Administrative child 
welfare and adult substance abuse treatment records and (2) 
standardized instruments administered to the parents and/or caregivers. 
The Children's Bureau is requiring grantees to obtain and report 
specified administrative records, and to use a prescribed set of 
standardized instruments. Grantees will provide these data to the 
cross-site evaluation team twice a year by uploading them to a data 
system operated by Mathematica Policy Research and its subcontractors.
    3. Impact Study. The goal of the impact study is to assess the 
impact of the RPG interventions on child, adult, and family outcomes by 
comparing outcomes for people enrolled in RPG services to those in 
comparison groups, such as people who do not receive RPG services or 
receive only a subset of the services. The impact study will use 
demographic and outcome data on both program (treatment) and comparison 
groups from a subset of grantees with appropriate local evaluation 
designs such as randomized controlled trials or strong quasi-
experimental designs; 5 of the 21 grantees have such designs. Site-
specific impacts will be estimated for these seven grantees. Aggregated 
impact estimates will be created by pooling impact estimates across 
appropriate sites to obtain a more powerful summary of the 
effectiveness of RPG interventions.
    In addition to conducting local evaluations and participating in 
the RPG Cross-Site Evaluation, the RPG grantees are legislatively 
required to report performance indicators aligned with their proposed 
program strategies and activities. A key strategy of the RPG Cross-Site 
Evaluation is to minimize burden on the grantees by ensuring that the 
cross-site evaluation, which includes all grantees in a study that 
collects data to report on implementation, the partnerships, and 
participant characteristics and outcomes, fully meets the need for 
performance reporting. Thus, rather than collecting separate evaluation 
and performance indicator data, the grantees need only participate in 
the cross-site evaluation. In addition, using the standardized 
instruments that the Children's Bureau has specified will ensure that 
grantees have valid and reliable data on child and family outcomes for 
their local evaluations. The inclusion of an impact study conducted on 
a subset of grantees with rigorous designs will also provide the 
Children's Bureau, Congress, grantees, providers, and researchers with 
information about the effectiveness of RPG programs.
    A 60-Day Federal Register Notice was published for this study on 
June 24, 2016. This 30-Day Federal Register Notice covers the following 
data collection activities: (1) The site visits with grantees; (2) the 
web-based survey of frontline staff who provide direct services to 
children, adults, and families, and their supervisors; (3) the semi-
annual progress reports; (4) enrollment and service data provided by 
grantees; (5) the web-based survey of grantee partners; and (6) outcome 
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.
    Annual burden estimates. The following instruments are proposed for 
public comment under this 30-Day Federal Register Notice. Burden for 
all components is annualized over three years.

                              RPG Cross-Site Evaluation Annualized Burden Estimates
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                                                                  Average burden
                                   Total number      Number of       hours per       Estimated     Total Annual
    Data collection activity      of respondents   responses per   response (in    Total burden    burden hours
                                                    respondent        hours)           hours
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                                      Implementation and Partnership Study
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Program director individual                    4               1               2               8            2.67
 interview......................
Program manager/supervisor group              36               1               2              72              24
 interview......................
Program manager/supervisor                    24               1               1              24               8
 individual interviews..........
Frontline staff individual                    24               1               1              24               8
 interviews.....................
Semi-annual progress reports....              21               6            16.5           2,079             693
Case enrollment data............              63              90            0.25         1,417.5           472.5

[[Page 64161]]

 
Service log entries.............             126           2,340            0.05          14,742           4,914
Staff survey....................              80               1            0.42            33.6            11.2
Partner survey..................              80               1            0.33            26.4             8.8
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                                          Data Entry for Outcomes Study
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Administrative Data:
    Obtain access to                          21               2              18             378             126
     administrative data........
    Report administrative data..              21               6             144          18,144           6,048
Standardized instruments:
    Enter data into local                     21               6           112.5          14,175           4,725
     database...................
    Review records and submit...              21               6             100          12,600           4,200
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                                     Additional Data Entry for Impact Study
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Data entry for comparison study                5               1             .25           1,085           361.6
 sites (7 grantees).............
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Estimated Total Burden Hours....  ..............  ..............  ..............  ..............       21,602.77
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    In compliance with the requirements of Section 3506(c)(2)(A) of the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Children's Bureau within the 
Administration for Children and Families is soliciting public comment 
on the specific aspects of the information collection described above. 
Copies of the proposed collection of information can be obtained and 
comments may be forwarded by writing to Administration for Children and 
Families, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, 330 C Street 
SW., Washington, DC 20416, Attn: ACF Reports Clearance Officer. Email 
address: [email protected]. All requests should be identified 
by the title of the information collection.
    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 Administration 
of Children and Families.

Robert Sargis,
Reports Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 2016-22458 Filed 9-16-16; 8:45 am]
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