EARS FNS 759 Change Justification (Clarify Instructions)

United States

Department of

Agriculture

Food and

Nutrition

Service

3101 Park

Center Drive

Alexandria, VA

22302-1500

3/6/17

TO: Steph Tatham, OMB Desk Officer

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs

Office of Management and Budget

THROUGH: Ruth Brown, Department Clearance Officer

United States Department of Agriculture

Office of Chief Information Office

FROM: Rachelle Ragland-Greene Rg and Christina Sandberg CS

Information Collection Officers

Planning and Regulatory Affairs Office

Food and Nutrition Service (FNS)

SUBJECT: Justification for Changes to OMB Control No: 0584-0594 Food Programs Reporting System Worksheet/Form FNS-759

FNS-759 Education and Administrative Reporting System (EARS)

FNS is requesting a non-substantive change to the Education and Administrative Reporting System worksheet/form FNS-759. This form is contained in the Food Programs Reporting System package, OMB Control No. 0584-0594, expiration date of September 30, 2019.

FNS recently revised the form FNS-759 to collect additional data and modify existing collections. OMB approved this revision without change on September 12, 2016 under OMB Control No. 0584-0594. As part of the revision process, FNS expanded the form instructions to address new elements and clarify existing ones. Subsequent to this approval, FNS identified minor portions of the instructions that require additional clarification or error correction. These modifications do not change the data elements that this form collects or the burden estimate associated with the form.

Minor modifications are to the form and the form instructions. These changes will simplify the way users provide data and enhance the user experience.

1. Page 1 – “s” removed from “consists” to fix the grammatical error in the text below

Population refers to SNAP-Ed participants (individuals participating in or exposed to SNAP-Ed activities, which consist of direct education; social marketing; and policy, systems, and environmental change (PSE) interventions). Indirect education will be captured within the social marketing and PSE sections.

2. Page 3 – addition of an optional field to enable people to report the number of sessions for their corresponding time ranges

Rationale for the change:   Without the two data elements, we come across a limitation in our collection because we can’t match the number of sessions with each of the time ranges.

3. Page 4 - Item 5 heading text updated to “characterizing implementation” since the form no longer collects data on “expenditures” and instructions updated to correct the page reference (see the tracked change in red below)

• Codes for this item are provided on the next three pages.

• Instructions updated to read "For Column A, refer to your State Plan and list all interventions. For Column F, provide the total estimated reach." 

4. Page 5 – corrections

• Column E - Corrected N code’s description text to read “Non-Hispanic/Latino” and the “>18” age to “18-59” and “AA” for “all ages” since code A was already used for Asian under “Race”

• Column E - Removed “of age” from each of the defined age ranges since this was unnecessary text

• Column H instructions– clarified language to indicate where the codes are (see the tracked change in red)

For Column H, use the intervention setting codes on the next page and follow it with the number of sites per setting.

• Column I – Made “website” plural (“websites”) so that it is consistent with the other codes and removed “public service announcement” from the text for Codes R and T so that they read “radio” and “TV,” respectively, since we were instructing people to report all radio and TV use with those codes

5. Page 6 - We aligned the setting codes for Item 5 with the SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework Interpretive Guide categories (see the referenced graphic and source below) and added footnotes to define acronyms.

• Relocated “adult education, job training sites, TANF sites, & veterans services” to the Work domain

• Incorporated “adult rehabilitation centers” into “group living arrangements/residential treatment centers”

• Renamed “afterschool program sites (includes Boys and Girls Clubs)” to “before- and after-school programs”

• Combined “schools (preschool),” “Head Start facilities,” “child care centers,” and “family daycare homes” (previously under the Live domain) into “Early care and education facilities” (under the Learn domain) to match CDC’s categorization of these settings

• Relocated “Extension Offices” and “WIC Clinics” from the Work to Learn domain

• Combined “individual homes” and “public housing sites” into one code

• Added “Group living arrangements/residential treatment centers” to the Live domain

• Combined “community centers” and “recreation centers” into “Community and recreation centers” and added “State” to “County Fairgrounds”

• Relocated “Health care clinics and hospitals” to the Live domain

• Renamed “Worksites” to “Worksites with low-wage workers”

• Assigned codes to each domain’s other category, which has a write-in option, to meet development needs

6. Page 7 – clarifications and coding adjustments

- Added “decrease the playing of” to the example in Code R to enhance clarity

- Assigned codes to the “other” categories under “individual knowledge and skills” and “engagement in physical activity,” (both of which have a write-in option) to meet development needs

7. Page 8 – label edit

• “Early Care and Education” partner title was renamed to “Early care and education facilities” so that it would match the change in the terminology used in the code for Item 5

8. Page 9 – coding adjustment

• Modified the code for the “other” category to meet development needs

At this time, FNS is requesting a no material/non-substantive change, with no impact on the current burden.

If you have any questions regarding this request, please contact Rachelle Ragland-Greene, FNS Information Collection Officer for the Food and Nutrition Service, Planning & Regulatory Affairs Office at (703) 305-2586, [email protected]. or Christina Sandberg at (703) 305-2337 at [email protected]

Attachment and Reference Link:

• FNS-759 Education and Administrative Reporting System Form (PDF)

• SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework Interpretive Guide (specific graphic provided below)

Source: Page 98 of the SNAP-Ed Evaluation Framework Interpretive Guide. The full text is posted on the SNAP-Ed Connection at https://snaped.fns.usda.gov/snap/EvaluationFramework/SNAP-EdEvaluationFrameworkInterpretiveGuide.pdf.

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