[Federal Register Volume 91, Number 19 (Thursday, January 29, 2026)]
[Notices]
[Pages 3892-3893]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2026-01734]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Administration for Children and Families
[Office of Management and Budget #: 0970-0566]
Proposed Information Collection Activity; Healthy Marriage and
Responsible Fatherhood Performance Measures and Additional Data
Collection
AGENCY: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration
for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services.
ACTION: Request for public comments.
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SUMMARY: The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of
Family Assistance (OFA), has had administrative responsibility for
federal funding of programs that strengthen families through healthy
marriage and relationship education and responsible fatherhood
programming since 2006 through the Healthy Marriage (HM) and
Responsible Fatherhood (RF) grant programs. ACF required the 2015 and
2020 cohorts of HMRF grant recipients to collect and report performance
measures about program operations, services, and participants (Office
of Management and Budget (OMB) #: 0970-0460 and OMB #: 0970-0566). ACF
will continue performance measure data collection and reporting for a
new cohort of HMRF grant recipients that received 5-year awards in
September 2025. ACF is requesting comment on a revision to its approved
data collection and reporting (OMB #: 0970-0566) to support these
activities with the 2025 HMRF grant cohort. This new cohort is expected
to begin collecting performance measure data and reporting to ACF in
April 2026.
ACF is requesting to extend approval, with the implementation of
revisions described below, for 3 years.
DATES: Comments due March 30, 2026.
ADDRESSES: 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. You can obtain
copies of the proposed collection of information and submit comments by
emailing [email protected]. Identify all requests by the
title of the information collection.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Description: ACF proposes to continue collecting a set of OMB-
approved performance measures from all HMRF award recipients to enable
program performance monitoring and program improvement activities with
the revisions described below.
The HMRF performance measures collect standardized information in
the following areas:
Program operations;
Service delivery; and
Participant characteristics and outcomes:
[cir] Application form.
[cir] Program entrance survey at enrollment, with four versions:
(1) HM Adults; (2) HM Youth; (3) RF Community-Based Fathers; and (4) RF
Reentering Fathers.
[cir] Program exit survey at program completion, with four
versions: (1) HM Adults; (2) HM Youth; (3) RF Community-Based Fathers;
and (4) RF Reentering Fathers.
The measures were developed in 2014 after extensive review of the
research literature and grant recipients past measures. They were
revised in 2020 based on a targeted analysis of existing measures,
feedback from key audiences, and discussions with ACF staff and the
2015 cohort of grant recipients. OMB approved these revised measures in
2021; since then, OMB has approved non-substantive changes and a 3-year
renewal through March 31, 2027. To prepare for the 2025 cohort, ACF
conducted an updated analysis of the measures and obtained feedback
from key audiences, including HMRF grant recipients, federal staff, and
program clients.
Based on this feedback and to reduce respondent burden and focus
performance measures on ACF's priorities for the 2025 cohort, ACF
proposes to:
Eliminate an applicant characteristics survey administered
at program enrollment;
Modify measures on surveys administered to participants at
the start and end of programming;
The program entrance and program exit surveys will be
translated into Spanish. ACF acknowledges that English is the official
language and authoritative version of all federal information and will
note this on the translated instruments.
Eliminate the requirement for grant recipients to complete
a program operations survey and performance report after the first,
second, and third quarters of each grant year;
Modify the program operations survey and Performance
Progress Report (PPR) that grant recipients will submit after the
fourth quarter of each grant year.
The OMB-approved PPR has been modified with one version for all
[[Page 3893]]
programs and other revisions to reflect the updated performance
measures.
ACF provides grant recipients with a web-based performance measures
system called nFORM (Information, Family Outcomes, Reporting, and
Management) to improve the efficiency and quality of data collection
and reporting and support grant recipient and federal monitoring and
evaluation.
ACF proposes to continue the OMB-approved requirement for grant
recipients to document their continuous quality improvement (CQI)
planning and implementation using a CQI plan template that is completed
outside of the nFORM system. This template had been included in this
information collection in the past, but for the 2025 cohort, this
requirement will be covered under a separate information collection
request.
Respondents: Respondents include HM and RF grant recipient staff
and program applicants and participants.
Annual Burden Estimates: The burden estimates have been updated to
remove the applicant characteristics survey and CQI planning
instruments and reduce required reporting, as described above, and
reflect the number of grant recipients and participants that ACF
expects for the 2025 cohort. Additionally, the service delivery data
burden estimate has been updated to reflect the median program length
rather than the average that had been previously used, which better
aligns with how grant recipients will report program length.
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Number of
Number of responses per
respondents respondent Avg. burden Total burden Annual burden
Instrument Respondent (total over (total over per response (in hours) (in hours)
request request (in hours)
period) period)
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1: Program Application and Enrollment.. Program staff (application 327 413 0.10 13,505 4,502
form).
Program staff (entrance survey 218 124 0.10 2,703 901
data entry).
Program applicants (entrance 135,000 1 0.34 45,900 15,300
survey).
2: Program Operations.................. Program staff.................. 109 3 0.32 105 35
3: Service Delivery Data............... Program staff.................. 1,635 78 0.36 45,911 15,304
4: Exit Surveys........................ Participants................... 87,561 1 0.28 24,516 8,172
Program staff (exit survey data 218 80 0.10 1,744 581
entry).
5: Annual PPR.......................... Program staff.................. 109 3 3 981 327
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Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 45,122.
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: Section 403. [42 U.S.C. 603].
Mary C. Jones,
ACF/OPRE Certifying Officer.
[FR Doc. 2026-01734 Filed 1-28-26; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4184-73-P