Study of School Climate Transformation Grants

telephone interview protocol

department of justice (doj) School justice collaboration Grants:

Keep Kids in school and out of court

Interviewee name:	Interviewer:
Job title:	Date/time:
Interviewee role(s): (mark all that apply)
ᴏ (Grantee director/team leader: student support, case mgmt.) ᴏ Staff position, other than team leader (e.g., training coordinator)
ᴏ Other ____________________________________

Information for the Interviewer:

In alignment with SCTG and Project AWARE, this grant program aims to build, expand, or sustain capacity at the local level to:

• Make schools safer;

• Increase awareness of mental health issues;

• Connect children with exhibiting behavioral health issues to needed services; and

• Avoid unnecessary referrals from schools and juvenile justice and law enforcement agencies formally processing youth.
  
  

Pay attention to:

• The various aspects of coordination (e.g., readiness to collaborate, actual strategies, sustainability) (RQ1)

• Influence of coordination on implementation and sustainability (RQ 1)

• The perceived value of coordination (RQ2)

• Perceptions of outcomes (RQ 2)

• Challenges and lessons learned (RQ 3)

• Funding (e.g., whether or not this is coordinated, role of funding agencies) (RQ 3)

• Other elements (e.g., impact of competitive preference points) (RQ 3)

By the end of this interview, you should have details and examples for each of these areas.

Introduction

Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. Just as a reminder, this interview is for a study of School Climate Transformation Grants. Both the study and the grants are funded by the U.S. Department of Education. The Department is interested in the coordination between SCTG, Project AWARE, and DOJ grantees. Specifically, what the coordination looks like, your perceptions of the value of coordination, and any challenges or lessons learned.

Have you received the consent form for this study? Remember that that the confidentiality of the information you share will protected to the extent provided by law. We will not use your name in any report, and although grantees will be acknowledged, they will not be named in the text of the report. Do you have any questions about the purpose of this interview, your privacy, or anything else?

We would like to ask you permission to audio record this interview to ensure we are accurately capturing your feedback. Only the research team and our funders will review the audio files and the transcripts. They will not be shared with any other personnel. At the end of this project, all interviews—audio files and transcripts—will be destroyed. Do we have your permission to record this interview?

We know that you are very busy, and we want to be respectful about your time, so we’ve made an effort to collect as much information as possible through available documents. We’ll sometimes reference that information during the course of the interview to confirm that our information is correct. This interview will take about 45–60 minutes.

Do you have any questions before we begin?

Warm-Up

Question	Listen For
1. We understand your job title to be [repeat listed job title]. Please briefly describe the scope of your duties.	Scope of duties related to this job title
2. We've had a chance to review the narrative of the grant you work on and we understand that the goals/aims for DOJ at the district level are [repeat listed goals on first page]. Describe the primary purpose of the grant. 3. What is your role, if any, with regard to implementation of the School Justice Collaboration grant in your county? 4. Are you familiar with the school district’s work on multi-tiered systems of support? [If yes] Does that relate to your work at all? [If no, skip to next section.]	Perspective of grant purpose

Coordination—mechanisms

Question

Listen For

5. Who are the partners within your grant who coordinate with the school district on behavioral interventions / multi-tiered systems of support? Who are the people on that grant with whom you work? 6. Are you familiar with the grant application that was submitted for this project? If so, were coordination activities implemented differently from how they were originally conceptualized in the grant application? [If yes] Please describe these differences. [If not, skip to the next question.] 7. How is your work on the School Justice Collaboration grant being coordinated with the school district’s behavioral supports for students? [Wait for response; if necessary, probe for shared communication, representation on common teams, shared training, or community of practice participation.] 8. Who are the people involved in implementing the coordination strategies? 9. How is funding from multiple grants coordinated, if at all? 10. Did you have any interactions with federal agencies regarding implementation of your program? If so, what did that look like? [Probe on who initiated, and the topics discussed, including coordination.] 11. What plans are there to continue and sustain coordination after the grants end?

Awareness and understanding of coordination activities (e.g., training and supporting staff to implement, monitor, and refine existing school programming), who directed these, role of funding agencies, and sustainability

Coordination—perceived value

Question

Listen For

12. If you are coordinating your work with the Youth Mental Health First Aid activities, what have you accomplished because of this coordination that would not have been accomplished without the coordination? Has coordination influenced whether you reach the goals for your grant? 13. Did coordination help to prompt any long-term changes in the practices/structure of your organization or agency? [If yes] Can you provide any examples? 14. Did coordination influence the implementation of interventions that were planned under the grants? [If yes] How so? 15. Did coordination affect school outcomes (e.g., school climate, discipline practices, relationships among students or staff)? [If yes] How? 16 How (if at all) has coordination affected plans for sustainability? 17. Aside from the advantages that we have already discussed, were there other advantages to coordination?

Examples of systemic changes to respondent's institution as a result of coordinated grant activities

Challenges and Successes

Question
18. What challenges have you faced in doing the work of this grant? How have you overcome these challenges? With what challenges are you still struggling? 19. What enhanced collaboration? What inhibited collaboration? Can you give some examples? 20. Are there any "lessons learned" related to coordination? [If yes] Please describe.

Wrap-Up

21. Did competitive preference points have an impact on your grant applications? [If yes] In what way(s)?

22. What is unique about the specific context of your program that helps to explain your responses?

23. Is there anything else you would like to tell us about coordination in the context of your work on the School Justice Collaboration grant?

Task Order 23: Study of School Climate Transformation Grants—5