Grantees and Administrators (SLT Gov) Respondents

Appendix AQ.3

State Agency Discussion Guide

English

STATE DISCUSSION SCRIPT

Name of State:

Contact Person:

Thanks for agreeing to talk to us today. Let me first tell you some about this evaluation. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded 31 grants to eligible organizations for implementation of the Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentives Grant Program, also known as FINI. Eligible organizations work with retail outlets such as grocery stores, farmers markets, farm stands, or Community Supported Agriculture and provide an incentive to SNAP participants who shop at these outlets. The purpose of the incentive is to increase fruit and vegetable purchases among SNAP participants. The incentives are typically provided when SNAP participants purchase fruits and vegetables. Depending on the project, the incentives may be redeemed towards the purchase of fruits and vegetables or any SNAP eligible products.

FNS has contracted with Westat to conduct an independent evaluation of the FINI projects. This comprehensive evaluation will provide information on the common strategies used across all projects, the factors that led to success of the project delivery, challenges in project implementation, and most importantly, use and acceptance of the incentive program as well as change in fruit and vegetable purchases and behavior among participating SNAP households.

Are you familiar with Westat? Westat is one of the largest social science survey research firms in the country. We have been in operation for over 50 years. Westat does large scale surveys for a number of Federal clients, including USDA, Dept. of Defense, Health and Human Services, and the Social Security Administration.

For the study we will be conducting a survey of SNAP participants who live in States hosting the incentive programs. We will be conducting the survey between February and October 2017 and reaching out to over 7,500 SNAP households. We want to minimize any burden on you to implement the SNAP Participant Survey; however, we do need your assistance to develop a sample frame of SNAP households in your State along with demographic and contact information.

We would like to obtain the following type information for all households participating in SNAP as of May 31, 2016:

1. EBT card numbers 2. Head of household name 3. Street number 4. Street name 5. City 6. State code 7. Zip code	8. Email 9. Phone numbers 10. Age of household head 11. Race/ethnicity of household head 12. Gross income 13. Net income 14. Household size
15. Number of children under age 18 16. Marital status of household head 17. Last uninterrupted benefit start date	18. SNAP Benefit payment/transmission date 19. Amount of Monthly SNAP Benefit

We expect to receive OMB approval by late spring/early summer, 2016 and will be able to receive the SNAP administrative data by July 2016, after receiving OMB approval.

We will ask you to submit the complete data using a secure transfer method such as uploading the data to a secure FTP site at Westat. All data will be safeguarded as confidential. Once we have selected the sample, all identifying information for anyone not selected will be destroyed.

• Are you the person to whom we should make the request for the files?

• When should we make the request?

• How long will it take to get the files for households on SNAP as of May 31, 2016?

• Are there any data elements in our request that you are concerned about?

Possible issues:

• If providing a data dump is easiest, we can merge files received.

• If all data are with 3^rd party agency, we can work with them (e.g., Chase and Xerox).

• If file is very large, we can work with the State agency to determine secure transfer methods.

Outcome of call:

• State agrees to participate.

• State needs to consult with others (SCHEDULE A FOLLOW-UP CALL).

Other information

• We can take the data in any format.

• We can put together a data use agreement.

• Will also be doing 40 in-depth interviews with a sample of survey respondents.

Conference line:

800-531-4204

Passcode: XXXX XXX#

Moderator code: XXXX-XXX #

Charge code: