Community service provider staff interviews

^{FUP-FSS Demonstration Evaluation}

INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE PROVIDER STAFF

Consent Script for Community Service Provider Staff

On-Site interviews

Before we begin, I want to tell you a few things about this study and your participation in it. Please feel free to ask me any questions you might have. We will also email you a copy of this information.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) contracted with the Urban Institute, and with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago as their subcontractor, to learn about how communities are using the Family Unification Program and Family Self-Sufficiency (FUP-FSS) Demonstration to serve youth who were formerly in foster care. The Urban Institute is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization based in Washington, DC that conducts research and program evaluations on social policy and programs. The information gathered for the evaluation will be used to help HUD understand how FUP-FSS has been implemented, the effectiveness of partnerships among the participating housing authorities, public child welfare agencies, and other organizations that collaborate on the demonstration, the agencies’ experiences with implementation, and short-term outcomes for participating youth. We are not evaluating your organization or its role in the demonstration.

As part of this process, we are talking with representatives from public housing agencies (PHAs) participating in the FUP-FSS demonstration, along with their partner child welfare agencies. In a small number of communities, we will also talk to Continuum of Care partners and other organizations such as yours that provide services to FUP-FSS participants.

If you agree to participate in a voluntary interview, a pair of researchers will ask you some questions about the FUP-FSS demonstration, including questions about services provided to FUP-FSS youth, your collaboration with [PHA name], ways in which serving youth may differ from serving other groups, successes or challenges you may have encountered serving youth, and lessons learned. The discussion will take about 60 minutes. We may contact you after the interview to ask for clarification.

Your participation in this study is completely voluntary. Participating or choosing not to participate will in no way affect your interactions with the Federal Government, including HUD, the US Department of Health and Human Services, and/or any other federal agencies. The interview will last about 60 minutes. The interview does not include sensitive questions beyond your experiences with the FUP-FSS program. That being said, you may choose to skip any questions you don’t want to answer, and you may stop participating in the interview at any time. With your permission, we will audio record the interview to have an accurate record of what is said. One of the researchers will be taking detailed notes, but we will not identify your name in our notes. We may contact you after the interview to ask for clarification.

We will make every effort to protect your confidentiality and will not disclose information that you share in any way that would identify you. We will not allow anyone outside the research team to listen to the audio recordings or review the notes we take. Information provided to us will be reported in the aggregate by role, organization type or other broad categories. Individuals will not be identified by name or title. When we report our findings, we will combine the information we gather from everyone we talk to and present it in a way that does not allow the responses of individuals to be easily identified. However, we may identify the agency you work for, and unique roles could allow an individual to indirectly attribute a statement to you. Although we are taking steps to mitigate potential risks, there is a chance that someone could identify you through a combination of survey responses and interview findings. We believe this risk to be minimal and will protect your identity by removing specific identifiers in our interview transcripts, only reporting findings in the aggregate, and not attributing comments or quotes to you unless we have your permission to do so.

You will be provided a document that answers questions about the FUP-FSS Demonstration Evaluation and the interviews we are conducting. After you review, you can decide if you still want to participate. We want to be sure that you freely consent to participate in this interview and that you are aware that you are not obligated to answer any questions you do not wish to answer.

DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THE STUDY OR TODAY’S DISCUSSION?

MAY WE PROCEED WITH THE DISCUSSION?

INTERVIEW GUIDE FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE PROVIDER STAFF

DO YOU CONSENT TO BE RECORDED?

[If consented to recording] I will turn on the audio recorder and begin the interview now and we can get started]

Introduction

We are interested in your collaboration with [PHA name] and any collaboration you may have with [PCWA name] and [CoC lead organization name] in serving youth participating in [PHA name’s] FUP-FSS Demonstration program. We know that you may work with other child welfare agencies and housing agencies or CoCs, but we would like to focus on these. Also, we know that you may also serve families receiving FUP vouchers, but we would like to just focus on youth participating in the FUP-FSS Demonstration for our conversation today.

Do you have questions before we continue?

Now, please tell me about your organization and your position here.

• What are the main activities of your organization?

• What is your position?

  • Please describe your primary responsibilities.

• What services does your agency provide to help FUP-FSS youth?

  • Do you provide services to both FUP youth and other [PHA] FSS program participants?

• How much of your time do you spend on FUP-FSS youth?

• Are you the main staff person responsible for FUP-FSS Demonstration program services?

  • If no: who else is responsible? What is/are their role(s)?

Service Partnership Development

Now let's talk a bit about your partnership with [PHA name] and other service partners involved in administering FUP and related services.

• Please describe your relationship with [PHA name].

[If a substantial relationship exists, ask the following]

• How long have you had this relationship?

• When did you begin partnering to provide services for FUP-FSS youth?

  • Was it your agency that approached [PHA name], or did [PHA name] approach you or did someone else approach you?

• What led to your decision to enter this partnership with [PHA]?

• What are your goals for the partnership?

• Do you have a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) or a contract in place with [PHA name] that includes language around providing services to youth with FUP vouchers?

  • [If yes] What are you required to do? What is [PHA name] required to do?

Service Coordination with Partners

Now we'd like to discuss your coordination with the agencies and organizations that are partners on the local FUP-FSS Demonstration to provide services to FUP-FSS youth: [PHA name], [PCWA name], and [CoC lead organization name].

• How do you coordinate services for FUP-FSS youth with these partner agencies?

• Do you have a point of contact at the partner agencies/organizations to address issues around FUP-FSS youth?

  • [Probe for each organization: PHA, PCWA, CoC]

  • [If not] Would having a single point of contact be helpful?

• Has your organization assigned a point of contact at partner agencies to reach out to with questions about serving FUP-FSS youth?

• How and how often do you typically communicate with partner agencies/organizations?

  • Does your organization have regular meetings with these partners?

    • [If no] Do you think it would be helpful to meet regularly? Why?

    • [If yes] Please describe those meetings.

      • How often do you meet?

      • What topics do you typically communicate about?

  • Please describe any other communication beyond regular meetings that you have with partner agencies/organizations on providing services to FUP-FSS youth.

• Do you think there should be more communication, less communication, or is the amount about right? Why?

• Do any partner agencies/organizations provide training to staff at your organization around providing services to FUP-FSS youth?

• [If yes] Please describe the training.

• [If no] Would this type of training be helpful? What topics would be helpful to cover?

• How successful overall would you describe your organization's relationship with your partner agencies/organizations?

• Please describe any factors that have contributed to successful collaboration.

• Please describe any barriers to collaboration that have come up and how you have dealt with them.

• What else, if anything, do you think could be done to improve these relationships?

Referral and Application

Now we'd like to learn more about any involvement you have in referring youth for FUP-FSS.

• Do you identify and refer youth who might be eligible for FUP, or for the FUP-FSS Demonstration?

[If yes, ask the following]

• How does your organization identify FUP-FSS eligible youth?

Supportive Services provided to FUP-FSS demonstration participants

We'd like to know about the supportive or self-sufficiency related services you and other agencies provide to youth who have leased-up and are participating in the FUP-FSS Demonstration.

• What, if any, supportive services does your organization provide directly to FUP-FSS Demonstration youth? Probe for:

  • Financial counseling/management?

  • Job search assistance?

  • Job training?

  • Educational or vocational training?

  • Transportation assistance?

  • Childcare assistance?

  • On-going case management?

  • Long-term housing planning?

  • Other?

• How long are you providing services to youth?

  • When are these services typically provided?

  • [Probe for] Frequency, length of time spent with youth, regularity of meetings

• Are these services also available to FUP youth who are not participating in the demonstration?

• Do partner agencies/organizations provide any additional supportive services to FUP-FSS demonstration participants?

  • If yes, please describe those services.

• What, if any, special support do you or your partner agencies target toward youth who are parenting?

• How, if at all, does your organization coordinate services with partner organizations?

• Are there additional services that youth need that your organization or partners do not provide? If yes, please describe these services.

Engaging FUP-FSS demonstration participants.

We'd like to know about your perspective on any unique considerations for serving FUP-FSS demonstration participants.

• How does serving youth aging out of foster care differ from serving other demographics?

  • For housing assistance?

  • For self-sufficiency services?

• What are some of the unique considerations for serving FUP youth or FUP-FSS participants who are parents?

• In your experience working with FUP youth, how does the trauma they have experienced influence their service needs?

  • How does having been “system-involved” affect youths’ ability to move towards self-sufficiency?

• Can you tell me about ways your organization has tried to address the needs of FUP-FSS youth?

• In what ways, if any, has [community service provider] needed to adapt services to meet the needs of youth exiting foster care?

Funding FUP-FSS Services

• What are your funding sources for self-sufficiency services for FUP-FSS youth?

• How, if at all, does your budget constrain your ability to provide the services you think FUP-FSS youth need?

Data

Now we'd like to hear about your process for tracking client information.

• Do you track what services you provide FUP-FSS youth in a data system?

[If track client data, ask the following]

• What type of data system do you use to record client data for the FUP-FSS demonstration?

• What types of information do you track?

  • [Probe for: services received, referrals made, dates received, progress on dimensions of independent living]

• How do you use the information you collect?

Community Context

Please tell us some more about how the community context you work in affects how you serve FUP-FSS youth.

• How has the local housing market affected your ability to help youth meet their housing needs?

• Please describe the social services landscape. How widely available are self-sufficiency related services for youth?

  • [Probe for] job search, job training, financial counseling, educational or vocational services.

Reflections

As we approach the end of our conversation, we'd like to ask you to reflect on your experience with the FUP-FSS demonstration and provide any recommendations you may have.

• What do you think is working well?

• What do you think could have been done better to implement the demonstration?

Closing

Thank you for taking the time to talk with me today.

• Is there anything that I did not ask that you think I should know about your experience, FUP youth, or FUP-FSS Demonstration participants?

• Do you have any final questions for me about the study, or about the research team?

• Is there anyone else you think we should be sure to talk to about the FUP-FSS Demonstration?

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