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Implementation Grants to Develop a Model Intervention for Youth/Young Adults With Child Welfare Involvement At-Risk of Homelessness:

Phase II

OMB Information Collection Request

0970-0445

Supporting Statement

Part B

February 2017

Submitted by:

Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation

Administration for Children and Families

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

4^th Floor, Mary E. Switzer Building

330 C Street, SW

Washington, D.C. 20201

Project Officer:

Mary Mueggenborg

B1. Respondent Universe and Sampling Methods

In September 2015, the Children’s Bureau (CB) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) awarded grants to six organizations to support the implementation and evaluation of the comprehensive model interventions for youth/young adults with child welfare involvement who are at risk of homelessness (“YARH 2 grants”).

The objective of the YARH process study is to learn about six grantees’ experiences with initial implementation of an innovative comprehensive service model intended to prevent homelessness among youth and young adults with child welfare involvement. All six grantees that received funding will be included in the process study.

This Information Collection Request (ICR) includes planning calls and one instrument associated with the YARH process study. Upon OMB approval, site visits will be conducted at all six grantee sites (one visit each) between September 2017 and January 2018. Planning for site visits will be done with the project director for each grantee (Attachment C). Discussion guides for individual and small-group interviews (Instrument 1) will be used in semistructured discussions with implementation team members and members of other teams in the grant who are not represented on the implementation team. The scheduling of site visits and discussions will be done with the grantee project director (see email communication in Attachment B). Each site visit will include no more than 10 individual interviews (60 individual respondents total).

B2. Procedures for Collection of Information

The data collection procedures for site visits include using a discussion guide for individual and small-group interviews. We will conduct these interviews in person as semistructured interviews. We will conduct site visits in 2017, upon OMB approval. Members of the project team will make the initial contact with grantee project directors through email and conference call (see Attachment A for the initial email, and Attachment B for the script for the initial conference call). We anticipate it will take an hour to schedule the site visit: an initial 30-minute telephone call, followed by an additional 30 minutes of email or telephone conversations. Process study team members will describe the process study and purpose of the site visit to the project director. To the extent possible, the semistructured interviews will be held with small groups of staff at similar levels in their organizations. For example, a small-group interview may be held with implementation team members who are frontline staff, including caseworkers and outreach specialists. A second small-group interview may be held with supervisors of the frontline staff. If a grantee has only a single staff member in a particular level, however, an individual interview will be held with that person. Scheduling of interviews will be done with the project director to ensure minimal disruption to operations. Members of the Mathematica Policy Research team, which has been awarded the contract for the process study, will lead the interviews. Before each interview, process study staff will ask for verbal consent from each respondent to participate in the interview and to record the interviews (see Attachment C, for the consent script requesting verbal consent). We anticipate that discussions will average 1.5 hours and that not more than 60 respondents will participate.

Data collected for the process study will be descriptive. In general, it will not involve formal hypothesis testing.

Unusual Problems Requiring Specialized Sampling Procedures

There are no unusual problems requiring specialized sampling procedures.

Periodic Cycles to Reduce Burden

There will be only one cycle of site visit interviews.

B3. Methods to Maximize Response Rates and Deal with Nonresponse

Expected Response Rates

Based on previous experiences with these organizations, we anticipate nearly all selected participants will choose to participate in individual or small-group interviews.

Dealing with Nonresponse

The process study is a descriptive study. We do not anticipate levels of nonresponse significant enough to affect data analysis.

Maximizing Response Rates

We expect to obtain a high response rate among sites for the site visits and semistructured interviews. Several factors will help ensure a high rate of cooperation from respondents. First, senior staff of the study team who are familiar with, and known to, the grantee will contact the project director. We visited all sites previously as part of the YARH-1 evaluation (OMB No. 0970-0445), so they are familiar with the study team and project goals. In addition, we aim to interview stakeholders who are heavily invested in the grant activities. We anticipate that respondents will be eager to engage in these discussions. Because the project team will work with grantees to schedule the site visit and interviews, we expect a high participation rate.

B4. Tests of Procedures or Methods to be Undertaken

We will not conduct a separate pilot test of our data collection procedures or discussion guide. We have successfully used similar data collection procedures and discussion guides to collect comprehensive and reliable data in other studies with similar respondents. The site visitor team will meet following the first two of six site visits to discuss how the discussion guide worked. We do not anticipate needing to make significant changes.

B5. Individuals Consulted on Statistical Aspects, Collecting Data, or Analyzing Data

Mathematica received preliminary input on data collection and analysis methods. The following is a list of individuals who were consulted:

Dr. Allison J. Metz

National Implementation Research Network

Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Campus Box 8185

Chapel Hill, NC 27599-8185

Dr. Rosalind Keith

Mathematica Policy Research

600 Alexander Park

P.O. Box 2393

Princeton, NJ 08543

Dr. M.C. Bradley

Mathematica Policy Research

1100 1st St. NE, 12th Floor

Washington, DC 20002

Dr. Matthew W. Stagner

Mathematica Policy Research

111 East Wacker Dr, Suite 920

Chicago, IL 60601

The team is led by Mary Mueggenberg, federal project officer at ACF.

Further input on analytic approaches may be sought from additional staff at these organizations, as well as from outside consultants.

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