[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 236 (Monday, December 13, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 70844-70845]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-26913]



[[Page 70844]]

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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Administration for Children and Families


Proposed Information Collection Activity; Regional Partnership 
Grants National Cross-Site Evaluation and Evaluation Technical 
Assistance (OMB #0970-0527)

AGENCY: Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, 
HHS.

ACTION: Request for public comment.

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SUMMARY: The Children's Bureau (CB), Administration for Children and 
Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is 
requesting an extension with minor changes to the approved information 
collection: Regional Partnership Grants National Cross-Site Evaluation 
and Evaluation Technical Assistance (OMB #0970-0527). The proposed 
information collection will be used in a national cross-site evaluation 
of the fifth and sixth cohorts of CB's Regional Partnership Grants 
(RPG). The cross-site evaluation will use surveys, interviews, progress 
reports, and data on participant enrollment, services, and outcomes.

DATES: Comments due within 60 days of publication. In compliance with 
the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, ACF is 
soliciting public comment on the specific aspects of the information 
collection described above.

ADDRESSES: Copies of the proposed collection of information can be 
obtained and comments may be forwarded by emailing 
[email protected]. Alternatively, copies can also be obtained 
by writing to the Administration for Children and Families, Office of 
Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), 330 C Street SW, Washington, 
DC 20201, Attn: ACF Reports Clearance Officer. All requests, emailed or 
written, should be identified by the title of the information 
collection.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
    Description: The Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006 
(Pub. L. 109-288) amended section 437 of the Social Security Act (42 
U.S.C. 629g(f)) and authorized CB to fund discretionary grants to 
improve safety, well-being, and permanency outcomes for children at 
risk of or in out-of-home placement because of their caregiver's 
substance misuse. In response, HHS launched a competitive grants 
program called ``Targeted Grants to Increase the Well-Being of, and to 
Improve the Permanency Outcomes for, Children Affected by 
Methamphetamine and Other Substance Abuse,'' which is also known as the 
RPG program. Reauthorized in 2011 and again most recently by the 
Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (Pub. L. 115-123) in 2018, these grants 
are designed to support partnerships between child welfare agencies, 
substance use disorder treatment organizations, and other social 
services systems, and thereby improve the well-being, permanency, and 
safety outcomes of children and families. Under four prior rounds of 
RPG, CB has issued 91 grants to organizations such as child welfare or 
substance use 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 
at risk of being placed in out-of-home care as a result of a parent's 
or caretaker's substance misuse. In 2018 CB awarded 10 grants in a 
fifth cohort (RPG5) and 9 additional grants in a sixth cohort (RPG6) in 
2019. The current information collection request (ICR) is for data 
collection activities associated with the 18 grantees in the fifth and 
sixth cohorts. The first three cohorts were included in previous ICRs 
(OMB Control Numbers 0970-0353 and 0970-0444), and the fourth cohort 
was covered in the previous 3-year clearance under this ICR (OMB #0970-
0527).
    The RPG cross-site evaluation will extend our understanding of the 
types of programs and services grantees provided to participants, how 
grantees leveraged their partnerships to coordinate services for 
children and families, how grantees plan to sustain their programs 
after their grants end, and the outcomes for children and families 
enrolled in RPG programs. First, the cross-site evaluation will assess 
the coordination of partners' service systems (e.g., shared participant 
data, joint staff training) to better understand how partners' 
collaborative efforts affected the services offered to families 
(partnerships analysis). The cross-site evaluation will also focus on 
the partnership between the child welfare and substance use treatment 
agencies to add to the research base about how these agencies can 
collaborate to address the needs of children and families affected by 
substance misuse. Second, the evaluation will describe the 
characteristics of participants served by RPG programs, the types of 
services provided to families, the dosage of each type of service 
received by families, and the level of participant engagement with the 
services provided (enrollment and services analysis). Third, the 
evaluation will describe supports within the partnership that can help 
improve and sustain RPG services, such as continuous use of data for 
service improvement, identification of a lead organization, and 
policies, resources, and funding sources that will be needed after 
grant funding ends. Finally, the evaluation will assess the outcomes of 
children and adults served through the RPG program, such as child 
behavioral problems, adult depressive symptoms, or adult substance use 
and treatment (outcomes and impacts analysis).
    The evaluation is being undertaken by CB and its contractor 
Mathematica and its subcontractor, WRMA Inc. The evaluator is required 
to advise CB on the instruments grantees use to collect data from 
program participants for required local evaluations. Grantees will 
secure approval from their local institutional review boards for 
collecting these data.
    This ICR requests a renewal of clearance for the OMB package #0970-
0527, which was originally approved in May 2019, for obtaining 
participant data from grantees that they collect for their local 
evaluations and for directly collecting additional data from grantees 
and their partners and providers for the cross-site evaluation. This 
ICR requests an extension to allow more time for the information 
collection and includes a revision to add the sustainability survey as 
a new data collection activity. Specifically, this ICR requests 
clearance for the following data collection activities: (1) Site visits 
with grantees, (2) a web-based survey about grantee partnerships, (3) a 
web-based survey about sustainability planning, (4) semiannual progress 
reports, (5) enrollment and services data provided by grantees, and (6) 
outcomes and impacts 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.

[[Page 70845]]



                                             Annual Burden Estimates
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                                                                     Number of    Average burden
                                                   Total number    responses per     hours per     Total annual
            Data collection activity              of respondents    respondent     response (in    burden hours
                                                                    (each year)       hours)
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                                  Site Visit and Key Informant Data Collection
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Program director individual interview...........               8            0.33               2               5
Program manager/supervisor individual interviews               8            0.33               1               3
Frontline staff interviews......................              16            0.33               1               5
Partner representative interviews...............              24            0.33               1               8
Partner survey..................................              40            0.33            0.42               6
Sustainability survey...........................             126            0.42            0.33              18
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                                       Enrollment, client and service data
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Semi-annual progress reports....................              18               2            16.5             594
Case enrollment data............................              54              33            0.25             446
Case closure....................................              54              33          0.0167              30
Case closure--prenatal..........................              18              10         0.01672               3
Service log entries.............................             108           1,560           0.033           5,560
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                                             Outcome and impact data
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Administrative Data:
    Obtain access to administrative data........              18               1              41             738
    Report administrative data..................              18               2             144           5,184
Standardized instruments:
    Enter data into local database..............              18             100            .625           1,125
    Review records and submit...................              18               2              25             900
    Data entry for comparison study sites (16                 16             100            .625           1,000
     grantees)..................................
                                                 ---------------------------------------------------------------
        Estimated Total Burden Hours............  ..............  ..............  ..............          15,625
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    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 15,625.
    Comments: The Department specifically requests comments on (a) 
whether the proposed collection of 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.
    Authority: The Child and Family Services Improvement Act of 2006 
(Pub. L. 109-288) created the competitive RPG program. The September 
30, 2011, passage of the Child and Family Services Improvement and 
Innovation Act (Pub. L. 112-34) extended funding for the RPG program 
from federal fiscal year (FFY) 2012 to FFY 2016. In 2018, the president 
signed the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (Pub. L. 115-123) into law 
reauthorizing the RPG program through FFY 2021 and added a focus on 
opioid abuse.

Mary B. Jones,
ACF/OPRE Certifying Officer.
[FR Doc. 2021-26913 Filed 12-10-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4184-29-P