To: Jordan Cohen
Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)
Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
From: Samantha Illangasekare and Shirley Adelstein
Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE)
Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
Date: May 27, 2021
Subject: Non-Substantive Change Request – Strengthening the Implementation of Marriage and Relationship Programs (SIMR; OMB #0970-0531)
This memo requests approval of non-substantive changes to materials for the Strengthening the Implementation of Marriage and Relationship Programs (SIMR), approved under the Formative Generic for ACF Research (OMB #0970-0531). We have adapted the approved staff interview topic guide into a master semi-structured qualitative interview protocol.
Background
OPRE received OMB approval for this information collection on March 20th, 2021. Approval was granted for data collection related to formative evaluations designed to strengthen healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs funded by the Office of Family Assistance and inform the broader HMRE field about approaches that might improve program implementation.
The approved request package included a staff interview topic guide that outlined the range of topics we would cover in our interviews with program staff. We indicated in our request that once additional information was obtained from the programs, we would submit a nonsubstantive change request for the staff interview topic guide showing how topics in the guide are worded as questions for semi-structured interviews.
Overview of Requested Changes
Based on our OMB-approved staff interview topic guide, we adapted a semi-structured interview protocol. The project’s interviewers will use this protocol in our data collection efforts to collect reliable information from HMRE program staff across each site. We developed the protocol within the confines of the burden estimates provided in the original submission. Each interview will last no more than 45-minutes with up to 10 program staff per site. It is important to emphasize that the developed protocol is semi-structured. Therefore, project interviewers will use this a guide and will not ask all questions to all respondents.
An updated Staff interview topic guide is included with this change request.
Time Sensitivities
ACF requests approval as soon as possible in order to begin scheduled data collection in July 2021.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Meyer, Aleta (ACF) |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2021-05-31 |