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Alternative Supporting Statement for Information Collections Designed for

Research, Public Health Surveillance, and Program Evaluation Purposes

Head Start REACH: Strengthening Outreach, Recruitment and Engagement Approaches with Families

OMB Information Collection Request

New Collection

Supporting Statement

Part A

September 2021

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 Officers:

Amanda Coleman

Mary Mueggenborg

Part A

Executive Summary

• Type of Request: This Information Collection Request is for a new request. We are requesting one year of approval.

• Description of Request:

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) seeks approval for a one-time qualitative case study to improve understanding of recruitment, selection, enrollment, and retention (RSER) approaches used by Head Start programs that have demonstrated success in reaching and supporting families who are experiencing adversities. This study aims to present an in-depth description of RSER approaches used by six purposively selected sites, not to promote statistical generalization to different sites or service populations beyond the sample.

We do not intend for this information to be used as the principal basis for public policy decisions.

A1. Necessity for Collection

Although the Head Start program has long sought to support the nation’s most underserved children and families, many programs face difficulties in reaching and serving families who are experiencing adversities because there may be no obvious pathways to connect these families to services and supports. In addition, programs that lack staff or partnerships that specialize in serving families experiencing specific adversities may also have difficulties identifying and engaging families. Because Head Start programs play an important role in providing fair access to early childhood programming and advancing positive and equitable outcomes for children and families, it is necessary to collect information on the approaches they use for the recruitment, selection, enrollment, and retention (RSER) of families who are experiencing adversities. Adversities is a broad term that refers to a wide range of circumstances or events that pose a threat to a child or caregiver’s physical or psychological well-being. The adversities that families experience are often intertwined with poverty, may co-occur, and are affected by systematic factors, such as structural racism. Common examples include (but are not limited to) families experiencing homelessness; involvement in child welfare, including foster care; and affected by substance use, mental health issues, and domestic violence. For the purpose of this study, the term “Head Start” refers to both infant/toddler (Early Head Start) and preschool-age (Head Start) programs.

There are no legal or administrative requirements that necessitate this collection. ACF is undertaking the collection at the discretion of the agency.

A2. Purpose

Purpose and Use

The purpose of the qualitative research (case studies) conducted as part of this study – the Head Start REACH¹ study—is to provide an in-depth understanding of the approaches that are likely to be successful for the RSER of families who are experiencing adversities, the factors that affect the implementation of these approaches, and the experiences (including supporting factors and barriers to participation) of such families, both enrolled and non-enrolled. They will also provide an understanding of the extent to which the Head Start Performance Standards (HSPPS) guide programs’ RSER practices and how programs tailor these practices to their local communities. Data from these case studies will inform the development of the study’s conceptual framework, identify knowledge gaps, and inform the design of a future large-scale descriptive study. Ultimately, this information collection will support ACF in better understanding how Head Start programs recruit, select, enroll, and retain families and inform Head Start’s efforts to achieve its mission of advancing equitable outcomes for children and families. In addition, these case studies may identify promising approaches for engaging underserved populations and help Head Start utilize more effective case management and coordination strategies. More details about the purposive selection criteria are available in Section B2 of Part B under Respondent Recruitment and Site Selection.

The information collected is meant to contribute to the body of knowledge on ACF programs. It is not intended to be used as the principal basis for a decision by a federal decision-maker and is not expected to meet the threshold of influential or highly influential scientific information.

Research Questions or Tests

Exhibit 1. Head Start REACH research questions

1. How do Head Start programs decide which families to focus on for their recruitment, selection, and enrollment activities?

   1. How do they prioritize families for enrollment in communities where there are more eligible families than slots?

   2. To what extent are these decisions influenced by program, community, and systems level factors (e.g., community needs assessment, availability of other ECE options)?

2. What approaches do Head Start programs use to recruit, select, enroll, and retain families?

   1. To what extent are these approaches tailored to families facing adversities (such as families experiencing homelessness, involvement in child welfare, including foster care, and affected by substance use, mental health issues, and domestic violence)?

   2. How do families perceive the approaches programs use for recruitment, selection, enrollment, and retention?

3. Which approaches are the most promising for recruiting, selecting, enrolling, and retaining families experiencing adversity and those facing barriers to using Head Start programs?

Study Design

The Head Start REACH study will conduct qualitative case studies for six sites. We define a site as a Head Start program and the community organizations with which it partners for the RSER of families who are experiencing adversities. We will recruit and purposively select Head Start programs that will allow us to examine a range of different RSER approaches and identify promising approaches that are focused on families with specific adversities or commonly co-occurring adversities. Promising RSER approaches are those that are supported by descriptive research and/or endorsed by key early care and education (ECE) stakeholders as contributing to programs’ ability to serve families facing adversities; these could include building collaborative relationships with partner agencies and supporting program staff in acquiring skills and knowledge related to serving such families. We will ensure there is variation in the program characteristics and RSER-related characteristics across the selected programs. More details about the purposive program selection criteria are in Section B2 of Part B under Respondent Recruitment and Site Selection.

For the case studies, we will conduct qualitative, semistructured interviews with up to 54 staff across the sites who are involved in RSER efforts and provide services to families experiencing adversities, including those in Head Start programs and in the community organizations with which the programs partner. We will also conduct focus groups with up to 120 families who are being served by Head Start programs and/or the community partner organizations. Focus groups with Head Start families will help ACF to understand their experience with the program and those with families not enrolled in Head Start will provide ACF with an understanding of barriers to Head Start enrollment and their reasons for choosing alternate early education and child care. We recognize that it may be more difficult to recruit families not enrolled in Head Start for focus groups; if necessary, we will offer these families the option of participating in a one-on-one interview (in-person or via telephone) in lieu of a focus group. We will purposively select these respondents to ensure they bring the range of perspectives needed to fully answer the study’s research questions. Additional information about the proposed respondents is in Section B2 of Part B under “Methods and Design.” We will also gather and review documents relevant to programs’ approaches and policies concerning eligibility, recruitment, selection, enrollment, and attendance (ERSEA). ERSEA is the starting point for Head Start program operations under the HSPPS; ERSEA includes RSER, with attendance falling under retention

To begin the process of selecting programs for the Head Start REACH case studies data collection, we have identified programs that appear to be especially successful in reaching and supporting families who are experiencing adversities. After searching for additional information on identified programs from administrative sources such as the Head Start Enterprise System (HSES)²and the 2019 Program Information Report (PIR)³, we will select 12 possible programs that vary along key criteria (see Section B2 in Part B under Methods and Design for more information). Following OMB’s approval, we will conduct calls and recruit 6 of the 12 programs for case study data collection; we will cease recruitment when 6 programs have agreed to participate. More information about how we will conduct the preliminary selection of 12 programs and the recruitment of 6 of those programs is in Section B2 of Part B, under “Respondent Recruitment and Site Selection.”

We have proposed a purposive sample and qualitative approaches to collecting data, as these methods provide the flexibility needed to fully understand the various types of RSER approaches Head Start programs are currently using, the types of adversities families are facing, and how programs are tailoring their RSER approaches to support these families in overcoming barriers to Head Start enrollment and participation. The study’s key potential limitation is that, despite purposive selection, the programs in the case studies might not ultimately include the full range of RSER approaches or the full range of adversities faced by families. This limitation will be acknowledged when sharing findings from the study. More details about the rationale of our study design are available in Section B1 of Part B under Appropriateness of Study.

Table A.1. Data collection activities

Data Collection Activity	Instrument	Respondent, Content, and Purpose of Collection	Mode and Duration
Recruitment	Program director recruitment call protocol (Instrument 1)	Respondents: Program directors Content: Information about the overall study and planned data collection activities Purpose: Secure program’s participation in the study; identify staff involved in ERSEA activities; identify ERSEA documentation; identify up to four community agencies with which the program partners in their ERSEA efforts; identify an on-site coordinator from the program staff to serve as a point of contact for the data collection team	Mode: Telephone Duration: 30 minutes
Interviews	Program staff interview protocol: Program director (Instrument 2)	Respondents: Program directors Content: Head Start program’s ERSEA policies; RSER approaches and how they are tailored for families facing adversities; staff training and support related to RSER and adversities; RSER approaches used with underserved families; and partnerships that support the program’s RSER efforts Purpose: Understand the RSER approaches that programs use, how they tailor these approaches for families experiencing adversities, and factors that shape and support the implementation of the approaches	Mode: In person (via telephone, if necessary, to accommodate respondent’s availability; via telephone or video conference if data collection is remote)a Duration: 60 minutes
Interviews	Program staff interview protocol: ERSEA staff (Instrument 2)	Respondents: Staff responsible for ERSEA efforts Content: Head Start program’s ERSEA policies; RSER approaches and how they are tailored for families facing adversities; staff training and support related to RSER and adversities; RSER approaches used with underserved families; and partnerships that support the program’s RSER efforts Purpose: Understand the RSER approaches that programs use, how they tailor these approaches for families experiencing adversities, and factors that shape and support the implementation of the approaches	Mode: In person (via telephone, if necessary, to accommodate respondent’s availability; via telephone or video conference if data collection is remote) a Duration: 90 minutes
Focus groups	Head Start enrolled families focus group guide (Instrument 3)	Respondents: Families enrolled in the Head Start program Content: Experience with the Head Start program; recruitment and post-enrollment experience in the Head Start program; likelihood of retention Purpose: Understand the barriers as well as the supporting factors that families experiencing adversities face in participating in Head Start programs	Mode: In person (via video conference if data collection is remote) a Duration: 90 minutes
Outreach calls	Community partner recruitment call protocol (Instrument 4)	Respondents: Representatives from community partner agencies Content: Information about the overall study and planned data collection activities Purpose: Secure partner agencies’ participation in the study and gauge their willingness to help recruit eligible parents who are not enrolled in Head Start for a focus group (or one-on-one interview).a	Mode: Telephone Duration: 10 minutes
Interviews	Community partner staff interview protocol (Instrument 5)	Respondents: Representatives from community partner organizations Content: Experience working with Head Start program, and their referral processes; understanding of Head Start eligibility criteria; procedures for disseminating information about early education and child care options to families; their view of the Head Start program’s role in meeting families’ needs Purpose: Understand factors that support the RSER into the program of families who are experiencing specific adversities	Mode: Primarily telephone interviews; in-person (or telephone) a interviews with the organizations recruiting families not enrolled in Head Start for focus groups Duration: 45 minutes
Focus groups (or one-on-one interviews)a	Families not enrolled in Head Start focus group guide (Instrument 6)	Respondents: Families not enrolled in the Head Start program who are being served by community partner organizations Content: Experience with the community partner organization; knowledge of Head Start program and alternate early education and child care options; barriers to enrollment in the Head Start program; reasons for choosing alternative child care Purpose: Understand factors that prevent families facing adversities from participating in Head Start programs	Mode: In-person (via video conference if data collection is remote) a Duration: 90 minutes (45 minutes if interview) b

^a Although we have planned on conducting in-person site visits for a majority of the data collection, we will be prepared to conduct all data collection activities remotely if necessary. Instruments have been prepared to be appropriate for either scenario.

^b We will offer the interview option if we have challenges recruiting families not enrolled in Head Start for focus groups. Interviews may be completed in-person or via telephone or video conference.

Other Data Sources and Uses of Information

Once we identified programs that are especially successful in reaching and supporting families facing adversities, we consulted the PIR and the HSES as well as program websites to inform the program selection process.

A3. Use of Information Technology to Reduce Burden

Although we have planned to conduct site visits, we will be prepared to conduct all data collection remotely via telephone and video conferencing software, if necessary.

Before a site visit, we will email the Head Start program staff to provide them with a list of relevant documents we would like to review during the visit. Although we plan to conduct some of the staff interviews and focus groups in person, we will offer staff the option to participate in an interview via telephone or video conference if they prefer that mode or are unable to participate in person during our site visit. After obtaining permission from each participant, we will audio-record all interviews and focus groups to ensure that we capture information accurately without requiring a participant to repeat information.

A4. Use of Existing Data: Efforts to reduce duplication, minimize burden, and increase utility and government efficiency

Our examination of work in this area has not identified other current or planned efforts to collect information to understand the RSER approaches used by Head Start programs to address the issues and barriers of families experiencing adversities as well as the factors that influence the implementation of these approaches.

The data collection plan is designed to efficiently obtain information and minimize respondent burden. When feasible, we will gather information from existing data sources. None of the study instruments ask for information that can be obtained from alternative data sources (including administrative data). We will use publicly available information and information gathered from key informants⁴ to identify and select case study sites and respondents. The design of the study instruments ensures minimal duplication of data collected across instruments; such duplication is necessary only when we need the perspective of more than one type of respondent to answer specific research questions.

A5. Impact on Small Businesses

Most Head Start programs and community partner organizations will be small organizations. We are sensitive to the burden that site visits can impose; we have developed concise protocols and will work flexibly around staff schedules in drafting agendas for the site visits. If specific staff are not available during our site visit, we will offer those staff the option of completing the interview via telephone or video conference. We will hold the focus groups with parents in the afternoons or evenings to maximize participation. if we have challenges recruiting families not enrolled in Head Start, we will offer these families the option to complete a one-on-one interview with us either in-person or via telephone or videoconference.

A6. Consequences of Less Frequent Collection

This is a one-time data collection.

A7. Now subsumed under 2(b) above and 10 (below)

A8. Consultation

Federal Register Notice and Comments

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regulations at 5 CFR Part 1320 (60 FR 44978, August 29, 1995), ACF published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the agency’s intention to request an OMB review of this information collection activity. This notice was published on Friday, June 4, Volume 86, Number 106, page 30050, and provided a sixty-day period for public comment. During the notice and comment period, we received two questions (Appendix A.1) and one general expression of support (Appendix A.2). Appendix A.1 includes ACF’s responses to the questions.

Consultation with Experts Outside of the Study

To complement the knowledge and experience of the team, we consulted with academic researchers with expertise in adversities affecting underserved families (Table A.2), including those experiencing homelessness, poverty, involvement with the foster care/child welfare system, and affected by substance abuse, mental health issues, or domestic violence. We also consulted with representatives of regional TTA agencies, state collaboration directors, and individuals from other organizations to assist in identifying programs and understanding RSER approaches, ensuring that each question was asked of fewer than 10 individuals.

Table A.2. Head Start REACH expert advisers

Name	Affiliation
Rachel Chazan Cohen	Tufts University
Margaret Burchinal	University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
Robert Goerge	University of Chicago

A9. Tokens of Appreciation

Participation in the Head Start REACH study data collection will place some burden on families who attend focus groups facilitated by team members.⁵ Depending on the time and location of the focus group, parents will have to travel and possibly secure child care to participate. To offset this burden and related incidental costs, and to acknowledge respondents’ efforts in a respectful way, the study team proposes to offer parents enrolled in Head Start a $25 gift card and those not enrolled in Head Start a $40 gift card as a token of appreciation for their participation in the focus groups. We expect the focus groups to last approximately 90 minutes.⁶ Although these data are not intended to be representative of the larger population of parents who are enrolled/not enrolled in Head Start, it is critical to secure participation of parents enrolled in Head Start (to understand their experience with the program. It is also important to involve those not enrolled in Head Start to understand barriers to Head Start participation and reasons for preferring alternate early education and child care options. We propose a higher token of appreciation for parents not enrolled in Head Start as we anticipate greater challenges with obtaining their participation in the study given that they will not be affiliated with a Head Start program. Without offering the proposed tokens of appreciation, we increase the risk of securing information only from parents most able to overcome barriers to participation, which would negatively affect the quality and utility of the resulting data for addressing key research questions.

A10. Privacy: Procedures to Protect Privacy of Information While Maximizing Data Sharing

Personally Identifiable Information

We will be collecting individual contact information to send honoraria and tokens of appreciation to participants who complete interviews via telephone. We will also collect individual contact information for the individual within each selected Head Start program who will act as a liaison for the study team, as we will work with them to schedule staff interviews, partner agency interviews, and parent focus groups. Information will not be maintained in a paper or electronic system from which data are actually or directly retrieved by an individual’s personal identifier. In addition, we will work with the program staff to ensure none of the documents from the program include personally identifiable information (PII) or other sensitive information.

Assurances of Privacy

The study parent consent forms (Appendices E, F, & G) and staff interview protocols (Instruments 2 and 5) include language informing all respondents about the planned uses of the data we collect, that their participation is voluntary, and that they may withdraw their consent to participate at any time without any negative consequences. The staff interview protocols (Instruments 2 and 5) indicate that information about program-level respondents and respondents from community partner organizations will be kept private to the extent permitted by law: they and their organization will not be acknowledged by name in future reports. Consent forms (Appendices E, F, and G) also inform parents that their information will be kept private to the extent permitted by law.

Interviews and focus groups for all respondents will be recorded with the permission of the respondents, and no one other than the research team will listen to the recording. If respondents want to say anything that they would prefer not to be recorded, they can ask the interviewer to pause the recorder. We will transcribe all focus groups and interviews; the recordings and interview notes will be saved on a secure server and destroyed after the study.

Although we will not ask for any sensitive information, respondents may reveal information about adversities they are facing; hence, we will obtain a Certificate of Confidentiality, which helps to assure participants that their information will be kept private to the fullest extent permitted by law. The study team has applied for this Certificate and will provide it to OMB when we receive it. The Certificate of Confidentiality helps to assure participants that their information will be kept private to the fullest extent permitted by law. Further, all materials to be used with respondents as part of this information collection, including consent statements and instruments, have been submitted to the Health Media Lab Institutional Review Board (Contractor’s IRB) and are currently under review for approval.

Data Security and Monitoring

As specified in the contract, the Contractor shall protect respondent privacy to the extent permitted by law and will comply with all Federal and Departmental regulations for private information. The Contractor has developed a Data Safety and Monitoring Plan that assesses all protections of respondents’ PII. The Contractor shall ensure that all of its employees, subcontractors (at all tiers), and employees of each subcontractor who perform work under this contract/subcontract are trained on data privacy issues and comply with the above requirements. 

As specified in the evaluator’s contract, the Contractor shall use encryption, compliant with the Federal Information Processing Standard “Security Requirements for Cryptographic Modules, as amended,” to protect all instances of PII during storage and transmission. The Contractor shall securely generate and manage encryption keys to prevent unauthorized decryption of information, in accordance with the Federal Information Processing Standard. The Contractor shall ensure that this standard is incorporated into the Contractor’s property management/control system; establish a procedure to account for all laptop and desktop computers, as well as other mobile devices and portable media that store or process sensitive information. Any data stored electronically will be secured in accordance with the most current National Institute of Standards and Technology requirements and other applicable Federal and Departmental regulations. In addition, the Contractor must submit a plan for minimizing to the extent possible the inclusion of PII on paper records and for protecting any paper records, field notes, or other documents containing respondents’ PII that ensures secure storage and limits on access.  

A11. Sensitive Information ⁷

No sensitive information is requested through this information collection.

A12. Burden

Explanation of Burden Estimates

Table A.3 presents an estimate of time burden for the data collections, broken down by instrument and respondent. These estimates are based on our experience with collecting information, interviewing professional staff, and conducting focus groups. We expect the total annual burden to be 313 hours. The study team based the average hourly wage estimates for deriving total annual costs on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers (2021 first quarter). For each instrument in Table A.3, the team calculated the total annual cost by multiplying the annual burden hours by the average hourly wage.

We use the mean hourly wage of $28.58, for women in professional and related occupations, for program staff and community partner staff, as we expect many of the staff working in these positions to be women. The mean hourly wage of $16.88, for women high school graduates with no college, is used for parents participating in the focus groups. Tables from which these wages were drawn are available at the following links:

• Program staff/community partner staff: USUAL WEEKLY EARNINGS OF WAGE AND SALARY WORKERS FIRST QUARTER 2021 (bls.gov) (Table 4)

• Parents participating in focus groups: USUAL WEEKLY EARNINGS OF WAGE AND SALARY WORKERS FIRST QUARTER 2021 (bls.gov) (Table 5)

Estimated Annualized Cost to Respondents

Table A.3. Estimated annualized cost to respondents

Instrument	No. of Respondents (total over request period)	No. of Responses per Respondent (total over request period)	Avg. Burden per Response (in hours)	Total/ Annual Burden (in hours)	Average Hourly Wage Rate	Total Annual Respondent Cost
Program director recruitment call protocol (Instrument 1)	6	1	0.5	3	$28.58	$85.74
Program staff interview protocol: Program director (Instrument 2)a	6	1	1.0	6	$28.58	$171.48
Program staff interview protocol: ERSEA staff (Instrument 2)a	24	1	1.5	36	$28.58	$1,028.88
Head Start program study activities and focus group coordinationb	6	1	8.0	48	$28.58	$1,371.84
Head Start enrolled families focus group guide (Instrument 3)	60	1	1.5	90	$16.88	$1,519.20
Community partner recruitment call protocol (Instrument 4)	24	1	0.17	4	$28.58	$116.61
Community partner staff interview protocol (Instrument 5)	24	1	0.75	18	$28.58	$514.44
Community partner focus group coordinationb	6	1	3.0	18	$28.58	$514.44
Families not enrolled in Head Start focus group guide (Instrument 6)c	60	1	1.5	90	$16.88	$1,519.20
Total		–	–	313	–	$6,841.83

^a There is one interview protocol for both the program director and the program’s ERSEA staff and the interviewer will tailor it to the respondent(s).

^b There is no instrument, only a document of duties associated with this activity.

^c If needed, we will offer the option of a 45-minute one-on-one interview; however, as we do not expect to have to use the interview option often, the table reflects a 90-minute burden for all families not enrolled in Head Start

A13. Costs

We propose to offer Head Start programs and partner organizations an honorarium to acknowledge their contribution to timely and complete data collection, and in recognition that their efforts in helping to coordinate study activities and participating in interviews will disrupt staff schedules in Head Start programs and partner organizations.

We will offer each Head Start program a $200 honorarium to be used by the program at their discretion for their assistance with a range of study activities. We will require the program director’s assistance in identifying appropriate respondents (ERSEA staff) for the interviews, an on-site coordinator to serve as a point of contact for the study team, and community organizations with which the program partners for ERSEA work. The on-site coordinator will be instrumental in identifying parents enrolled in the program for participation in the focus group. ERSEA staff are likely to be the only individuals at the program who can provide information about the strategies the program uses and tailors for the RSER of families who are experiencing adversities, which is essential for addressing the study’s research questions. We anticipate coordination activities to take about 8 hours per program.

We will offer staff persons at each community partner organization (up to four per site) a $25 honorarium to complete a 45-minute interview. We will offer a $100 honorarium to community partner organizations (one in each site) that assist us in identifying parents not enrolled in Head Start and facilitating their participation in the study. We anticipate coordination activities to take about 3 hours per organization.

To develop honoraria amounts, we considered wage data, the amount of time spent to assist in data collection activities, and the potential disruption to the schedules of the targeted respondents for participation.

A14. Estimated Annualized Costs to the Federal Government

Table A4. Estimated annualized costs to the federal government

Cost Category	Estimated Costs
Instrument Development and OMB Clearance	$158,793
Field Work	$275,412
Analysis	$66,045
Publications/Dissemination/Archiving	$234,499
Total annual costs over the request period	$734,749

A15. Reasons for changes in burden

This is a new information collection request.

A16. Timeline

Table A.5. Head Start REACH study timeline

Project Activity	Time Period
Recruitment	4 months, following OMB approval
Data collection	4 months, following recruitment
Analysis	6 months, following data collection
Reporting	4 months, following analysis

A17. Exceptions

No exceptions are necessary for this information collection.

Appendices

Appendix A.1: Responses to questions received on 60-day Federal Register Notice

Appendix A.2: Expression of support in response to 60-day Federal Register Notice

Appendix B: ACF Endorsement Letter

Appendix C: Program Director Recruitment Letter

Appendix D: Study FAQs for Head Start Staff

Appendix E: Consent Form for Head Start-Enrolled Parents’ Focus Group

Appendix F: Consent Form for Non-Enrolled Parents’ Focus Group

Appendix G: Consent Form for Non-Enrolled Parents’ Interview

Appendix H: Study Recruitment Flyer for Head Start-Enrolled Parents’ Focus Group

Appendix I: Study Recruitment Flyer for Non-Enrolled Parents’ Focus Group

Attachments (Instruments)

Instrument 1: Program director recruitment call protocol

Instrument 2: Program staff interview protocol: Program director and ERSEA staff

Instrument 3: Head Start enrolled families focus group guide

Instrument 4: Community partner recruitment call protocol

Instrument 5: Community partner staff interview protocol

Instrument 6: Families not enrolled in Head Start focus group guide

1 Head Start REACH: Strengthening Outreach, Recruitment and Engagement Approaches with Families

2 OMB #0970-0427

3 OMB #0970-0207

4 We ensured that each question was asked of fewer than 10 individuals.

5 We will offer the option of a 45-minute one-on-one interview if we experience challenges recruiting families not enrolled in Head Start for focus groups.

6 We will offer a $25 gift card to families not enrolled in Head Start who choose the option of a one-on-one interview instead of a focus group as these interviews will be of a shorter length (45 minutes)

7 Examples of sensitive topics include (but not limited to): social security number; sex behavior and attitudes; illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating and demeaning behavior; critical appraisals of other individuals with whom respondents have close relationships, e.g., family, pupil-teacher, employee-supervisor; mental and psychological problems potentially embarrassing to respondents; religion and indicators of religion; community activities which indicate political affiliation and attitudes; legally recognized privileged and analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians and ministers; records describing how an individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment; receipt of economic assistance from the government (e.g., unemployment or WIC or SNAP); immigration/citizenship status.

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