Profit/Non-profit Sponsors and Child Care Centers

APPENDIX B9. SPONSOR NOTIFICATION LETTER

OMB Number: 0584-XXXX

Expiration Date: XX/XX/XXXX

<DATE>

<SPONSOR ORGANIZATION DIRECTOR NAME>, <TITLE>

<SPONSOR ORGANIZATION NAME>

<ADDRESS>

Dear < SPONSOR ORGANIZATION DIRECTOR NAME>:

By now, you probably have been informed by your State Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) Director that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) has contracted with Westat, Inc., and its partnering organizations, Kokopelli Associates LLC and Windwalker Corporation, to conduct the Erroneous Payments in Child Care Centers Study (EPICCS). EPICCS was mandated by Congress to help FNS comply with the requirements of the Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Improvement Act (IPERIA) of 2012.

The goal of the study is to estimate erroneous payments in the CACFP. This data will be used to improve the program by maximizing the efficiency of meal tracking and reporting within the program to help ensure the integrity, refinement, and continuity of the CACFP. Enclosed is a fact sheet / FAQ that provides additional information. We have also enclosed letters of endorsement from the CACFP organizations.

<CENTER NAME>, for which you are the sponsoring agency, is one of 450 CACFP centers from across the country that has been randomly selected for participation in this Study. As the sponsoring agency, you will be requested to provide Westat access to the selected centers’ meal count and claims records, as well as income eligibility application records. In addition, we will contact you to conduct a pre-visit phone interview prior to scheduling our site visit to your agency and your center(s).

EPICCS will collect data on the breakfast and lunch meal programs provided by the center. A data collector will be making multiple visits to your agency and/or the center (at scheduled times). There will be two types of data collection visits. The first will be to abstract data from the income eligibility applications. These visits will take place at your agency or the center, depending on the location of the records. The second type of data collection visit will take place at the center and include meal observations, abstraction of administrative data, and abstraction of meal counting and claims data. The center will be asked to provide information about the center, meal preparation and serving, meal count and claiming procedures, and the children they serve.

According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 0584-XXXX. The time required to complete this information collection is estimated to average 5 minutes per response, including the time to review instructions, search existing data sources, gather and maintain the data needed, and complete and review the collection of information.

Data collection will include the following during the time periods indicated:

• September – October 2016

  • A pre-visit phone interview

• October 2016 – June 2017

  • Review and abstraction of income eligibility applications on three separate visits (at your agency or the center, depending on where the records are maintained)

• October – April 2017

  • Center Data Collection:

    • Review and abstraction of center enrollment information

    • Review and abstraction of meal counting and claiming records

    • Observation of meal preparation and serving

In addition, Westat will conduct in-person surveys with a small number of randomly selected households enrolled at each sampled center. The household survey component, called the National Assessment of Meal Eligibility and Services (NAMES) study, will ask parents/ guardians questions about their child’s participation in meal services, including their perceptions, satisfaction, and eligibility for meal benefits. The survey will also include questions about their income and household size. We will contact the sampled households separately to invite them to participate. Enclosed is a copy of the NAMES study brochure for your reference.

Your participation in EPICCS complies with the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 requirements and is crucial to ensure a nationally representative sample and scientifically valid findings. The results of this study will help inform future legislation and regulations for the child care center component of the CACFP. We assure you that all provided information will be used for research purposes only and kept private to the extent provided by law. Your participation will not affect meal reimbursements or meal program benefits for any participating state agency, sponsoring organization, child care center, or household.

We ask that you contact your selected centers to inform them about the study, explain why their participation in the study is important, and encourage their participation. For your convenience, we have enclosed a template that can be used as you draft your communication to your selected child care centers.

A member of the research team will be contacting you soon to discuss the study and answer any of your questions. If you have more immediate questions, please contact us at 1-855-272-0058 or [email protected].

Thank you for your help and cooperation.

Sincerely,

<ELECTRONIC SIGNATURE>

Roline Milfort, Ph.D., PMP

EPICCS Project Director

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