[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 82 (Monday, May 1, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 20345-20346]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-08740]



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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Administration for Children and Families


Proposed Information Collection Activity; Comment Request

Proposed Projects

    Title: Procedural Justice Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC).
    OMB No.: 0970--NEW.

Description

    The Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) within the 
Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is proposing data 
collection activity as part of the Procedural Justice Informed 
Alternatives to Contempt Demonstration (PJAC). In September 2016, OCSE 
issued grants to six child support agencies to provide alternative 
approaches to the contempt process with the goal of increasing parents' 
compliance with child support orders by building trust and confidence 
in the child support agency and its processes. PJAC is a five-year 
project (the first year of which is dedicated to planning) that will 
allow grantees to learn whether incorporating principles of procedural 
justice into child support business practices increases reliable child 
support payments. In addition to increasing reliable payments, the PJAC 
intervention aims to reduce arrears, minimize the need for continued 
enforcement actions and sanctions, and reduce the inefficient use of 
contempt proceedings.
    The PJAC evaluation will yield information about the efficacy of 
applying procedural justice principles via a set of alternative 
services to the current contempt process. It will generate extensive 
knowledge regarding how PJAC programs operate, the effects the programs 
have, and whether their benefits exceed their costs. The information 
gathered will be critical to informing future policy decisions related 
to contempt.
    The PJAC evaluation will include the following three interconnected 
components or ``studies'':
    1. Implementation Study. The goal of the implementation study is to 
provide a detailed description of the PJAC programs--how they are 
implemented, their participants, the contexts in which they are 
operated, and their promising practices. The implementation study will 
also assess whether the PJAC interventions are implemented as intended 
(implementation fidelity) as well as how the treatment implemented 
differed from the status quo (treatment contrast). The detailed 
descriptions will assist in interpreting program impacts and 
identifying program features and conditions necessary for effective 
program replication or improvement. Key activities of the 
implementation study will include: (1) A Management Information System 
(MIS) for collection and analysis of program participation data to 
track participant engagement in PJAC activities; (2) semi-structured 
interviews with program staff and staff from selected community partner 
organizations; (3) semi-structured interviews with program participants 
to learn about their experiences in PJAC; and (4) a staff questionnaire 
to gather broader quantitative information on program implementation 
and staff experiences.
    2. Impact Study: The goal of the impact study is to provide 
rigorous estimates of the effectiveness of the six programs using an 
experimental research design. Program applicants who are eligible for 
PJAC services will be randomly assigned to either a program group that 
is offered program services or to a control group that is not offered 
those services. The random assignment process will require child 
support program staff to complete a brief data entry protocol. The 
impact study will rely on administrative data from state and county 
child support systems, court records, criminal justice records, and 
data from the National Directory of New Hires. Administrative records 
data will be used to estimate impacts on child support payments, 
enforcement actions, contempt proceedings, jail stays, and employment 
and earnings. The impact study will also include a follow-up survey of 
participants that will be administered approximately 12 months after 
random assignment to a subset of the sample. The survey will gather 
information on participant experiences with the child support program 
and family court, family relationships, parenting and co-parenting, 
informal child support payments, and job characteristics. In an effort 
to enhance response rates, the PJAC survey firm will attempt to track 
survey sample members at a few points over the 12-month follow-up 
period in order to stay in touch with them and gather updated contact 
information from them.
    3. Benefit-Cost Study: The benefit-cost study will estimate the 
costs and benefits associated with the implementation and impact of the 
PJAC interventions. The study will examine the costs and benefits from 
the perspective of the government, noncustodial parents, custodial 
parents and their children, and society. Once measured, particular 
impacts or expenditures will constitute benefits or costs, depending on 
which analytical perspective is considered. For each of the 
perspectives, pertinent benefits and costs will be added together to 
determine the net value of the program. Key hypothesized benefits and 
costs to be assessed include increased PJAC intervention costs, reduced 
costs for contempt actions, increased payments from non-custodial 
parents, reduced court costs, and reduced jail time, among others. The 
benefit-cost study will rely on the results of the impact study, 
analysis of participation data from the MIS, and results of a staff 
time study in order to quantify various PJAC-related costs and 
benefits.
    This 60-Day Notice covers the following data collection activities: 
(1) Staff data entry for random assignment; (2) Study MIS to track 
program participation; (3) Staff and community partner interview topic 
guide; (4) Participant interview topic guide; and (5) Participant 
survey tracking letter.

Respondents

    Respondents for the first information collection phase include 
study participants and grantee staff and community partners. Specific 
respondents per instrument are noted in the burden table below.

                                             Annual Burden Estimates
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                    Number of         Average
           Instrument               Number of     responses per    burden hours    Total burden    Total annual
                                   respondents      respondent     per response        hours       burden hours
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff data entry for random                 120              150            0.05             900             300
 assignment....................

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Study MIS to track program                  120              150            1.00          18,000           6,000
 participation.................
Staff and community partner                 150                2            1.00             300             100
 interview topic guide.........
Participant interview topic                 180                1            1.00             180              60
 guide.........................
Participant survey tracking               3,000                3            0.10             900             300
 letter........................
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    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 6,760.
    In compliance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act 
of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13, 44 U.S.C. Chap 35), 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 the Administration for Children and Families, 
Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, 330 C Street SW., 
Washington DC 20201. Attn: ACF Reports Clearance Officer. Email 
address: [email protected]. All requests should be identified 
by the title of the information collection.
    The Department specifically requests comments on: (a) Whether the 
proposed collection of the information is 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) 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. 
Consideration will be given to comments and suggestions submitted 
within 60 days of this publication.

Robert Sargis,
Reports Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 2017-08740 Filed 4-28-17; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4184-41-P