Instrument 13: Screening tool for identifying respondents for second-round telephone interviews

S upporting Statement for OMB Clearance Request

Instrument 13: Screening Interview to Identify Respondents for the HPOG 2.0 National Evaluation Second-Round Telephone Interviews

National and Tribal Evaluation of the 2^nd Generation of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG)

0970-0462

April 2019

Submitted by:

Office of Planning,
Research & Evaluation

Administration for Children & Families

U.S. Department of Health
and Human Services

Federal Project Officers:

Nicole Constance, Hilary Forster, and Amelia Popham

Instructions for HPOG Program Directors and Staff

As you know, [name of local HPOG program] is participating in a national evaluation of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Program, for the second round of HPOG grants (HPOG 2.0), sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The evaluation is being conducted by Abt Associates and its partners, the Urban Institute, MEF Associates, and Insight Policy Research. The evaluation is assessing a range of promising HPOG-funded education and training programs around the nation for helping low-income individuals, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) recipients, secure well-paying healthcare jobs.

As you may recall, in 2017, we conducted a first round of telephone interviews with HPOG grantees. We are now conducting a second round of telephone interviews to document notable implementation and performance successes and challenges, review HPOG partners and systems, document how programs spend their grant funds, and changes over time. We need your help identifying the most appropriate individuals to talk to us about the following topic areas:

• program administration;

• economic context;

• grant expenditures;

• basic skills training, including adult basic education, adult secondary education, college developmental education, and English language acquisition;

• healthcare occupational training;

• work-readiness training;

• academic supports;

• personal/logistical supports; and

• employment assistance and work-based learning opportunities.

When thinking about who is the best person to respond to each topic area, please consider a range of HPOG program management and staff, as well as contacts associated with your program such as partners and stakeholders. In many cases the most appropriate person will be you. Even in those cases, we would like to get additional perspectives from other members of your staff, network of partners, and stakeholders. In particular, we are trying to identify people who have been around the program long enough to be able to discuss changes over time.

The phone interviews will take approximately XX-XX minutes.

The Paperwork Reduction Act Burden Statement: An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB control number for this collection is 0970-0462 and it expires XX/XX/XXXX. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden to Gretchen Locke at [email protected]; Attn: OMB-PRA (0970-0462).

Below are sample questions from the Second-Round Telephone Interviews protocol that highlight the range of information and detailed knowledge sought by the telephone interview:

• Program Administration: Since your HPOG program received the HPOG grant, has the relationship (e.g., roles and/or responsibilities within the HPOG program) with each of your partners expanded, diminished, or remained unchanged?

• Economic Context: Please describe the overall health of the local economy. Have there been any notable changes (increase or decrease) in the number of job openings (both healthcare and non-healthcare jobs) in general over the course of the grant period? If yes, please explain.

• Grant Expenditures: Approximately what percentage of HPOG funds is used for each of the following activities: program administrative costs (e.g., staff salaries, overhead expenses, etc.), program activities (e.g., outreach materials), training courses and support services (e.g., direct provision of support services, contracted support services, etc.)?

• Basic Skills Training (including adult basic education, adult secondary education, college developmental education, and English language acquisition): According to information collected during the First-Round Telephone Interviews and PAGES, your HPOG program offers the following strategies to accommodate individuals with low basic skills: […]. Have there been any updates or changes since the summer of 2017 to the basic skills training services you offer HPOG participants?

• Healthcare Occupational Training: Based on information collected during the First-Round Telephone Interviews and PAGES, the following healthcare occupational trainings were purposely designed (or redesigned/compressed) for accelerated completion: […]. Have there been any updates or changes since the summer of 2017?

• Work-Readiness Training: Are there some work-readiness training provisions that you think are more effective than others? Please explain.

• Academic Supports: Based on information collected during the First-Round Telephone Interviews, the following case management and counseling services are provided by staff in your HPOG program: […]. Have there been changes in whether services were provided by the HPOG program directly, partners (at a cost to HPOG or not), or community service agencies/other programs since the summer of 2017?

• Personal/Logistical Supports: Among the personal/logistical supports (e.g., emergency assistance, childcare/dependent care assistance, transportation, etc.) described above, which do you believe helps the most with participants’ training retention? Why?

• Work-Based Learning Opportunities and Employment Assistance: Based on information collected during the First-Round Telephone Interviews, the following job search and placement assistance is offered by the HPOG program, partners, or other programs or community service agencies: […]. Have there been changes in whether employment assistance was provided by the HPOG program, partners (at a cost or not), or community service agencies/other programs since the summer of 2017?

To help prepare for these interviews, we would like to identify appropriate respondents to interview for each of the topic areas. The attached spreadsheet is an example of the detailed information we need to gather about respondents. Please provide us with the name, job title, organization, telephone number, and email address for each respondent who will participate and select the topic area from the drop down list for which you believe this person is best suited to respond. If staff members have expertise on multiple topic areas, please select additional topics in the columns marked phone interview section in the spreadsheet.

As a reminder, please consider a range of HPOG program management and staff, as well as other contacts associated with your program such as partners and stakeholders.

Exhibit 1: Spreadsheet for Identifying Respondents for Second-Round Telephone Interviews

On behalf of the project team and ACF, thank you for your assistance.