Supporting Statement - Feedback on Materials for Father Involvement National Media Campaign

Feedback on Materials for Father Involvement National Media Campaign

Formative Data Collections for Program Support

0970 – 0531

Supporting Statement

Part A - Justification

January 2020

Submitted By:

Office of Family Assistance

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:

Jacqueline Proctor

Seth Chamberlain

A1. Necessity for the Data Collection

Research indicates that the lack of a father in the home correlates closely with crime, educational difficulties, teen pregnancy, and drug and alcohol problems. Since 2006, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF), the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse (NRFC) and the Ad Council are developing public service ads (PSAs) designed to help fathers understand that their presence and involvement is essential to the well-being of their children.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) seeks approval to elicit customer feedback information and then collect feedback on communication materials that will be used as part of a national media campaign.

This proposed information collection meets the following goals of ACF’s generic clearance for formative data collections for program support (0970-0531) as it is will collect information to inform decision making within the ACF Office of Family Assistance (OFA), which oversees the NRFC and the PSAs created..

Legal or Administrative Requirements that Necessitate the Collection

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

A2. Purpose of Survey and Data Collection Procedures

This information collection request includes two phases:

1. Exploratory Phase: During this first phase, we will elicit customer feedback to inform communication materials that will be used as part of a national media campaign.

2. Concept Testing Phase: During this second phase, we will request feedback on the proposed communication ideas (“creative concepts”) for the national media campaign.

The target of the media campaign will be fathers of children under age 18. Thus, we will seek feedback from fathers that fit this demographic on their lives, their culture, their needs, and their experiences as parents, to ensure we understand what type of ideas would be motivating and relevant to and inclusive of this target audience in the exploratory phase, and to understand whether the proposed creative ideas will achieve their goals of motivating fathers to be more involved in the concept testing phase.

Exploratory Phase

The information collected in this phase will help determine what is most important for the PSA campaign to communicate to fathers.The information to inform the exploratory phase will include a number of different sources:

• A literature review that includes a review of current media, published articles, and other publicly available information about fathers;

• Observing up to 4 father support groups (these observations are passive and no information will be collected from those observed);

• Up to 10 one-on-one phone interviews with professionals who support or have expertise on modern fathers, including academics, therapists, guidance counselors, and barbers; and

• 16 one-on-one phone interviews with:

• 8 fathers and

• 8 of these fathers’ family members (one family member per father, such as partner, child, or other)

One-on-one interviews are preferred for this research because they allow for more in-depth and honest feedback from respondents compared to other types of data collection. Conducting interviews by phone allows for access to remote, rurally located respondents and efficient reach of respondents located across the United States.

Specifically, the key objectives and feedback desired include:

• Needs of fathers

• Their understanding of fathers’ role as essential to their children’s lives

• How good or bad a job they feel they are doing as fathers, and why

• Barriers to more involved fatherhood

• Motivators to become more involved

• What resources fathers are most interested in; what would help them most

We plan to recruit fathers who fit the demographics targets by the media campaign. Specifically:

• Males between the ages of 16 to 48, who are fathers of children under 18.

• Mix of “full-time” fathers (defined as living with their children full time) and “part-time” fathers (defined as having partial to no custody of their children)

• Mix of race and ethnicities (Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Other)

• Mix of child age

• Mix of income level

• Mix of educational attainment

• Mix of marital status

• Mix of geographic area – urban/suburban/rural; mix of regions of the US

Concept Testing Phase

The feedback for the concept testing phase will be acquired via one-on-one video interviews. Interviews with the target audience are an important information gathering technique because they allow for more in-depth and unbiased feedback from individuals compared to other types of data collection. Conducting interviews via video instead on in person allows for access to remote, rurally located respondents, and to respondents across the US.

The information to inform the exploratory phase will include a number of different sources:

• 30 video chat one-on-ones, each lasting 60 minutes

• Two follow-up questions to all 30 respondents, which are estimated to take 10 minutes to complete

Specifically, the key objectives and feedback desired include:

• How well the target audience understands the concepts

• The overall appeal of the concepts

• The strengths and weaknesses of individual concepts

• The relevance of the concepts to the target audience

• Whether any specific aspects of the concepts are offensive or insensitive to the target

• How motivating the concepts are to fathers to follow through on the call-to-action and seek more information

We plan to recruit fathers who fit the demographics targets by the media campaign. Specifically:

• Males between the ages of 16 to 48, who are fathers of children under 18.

  • 10 – 12 Participants primarily aged 18-24 yrs, but including 1-2 aged 16-17 yrs, in order to be sure campaign ideas resonate among younger, newer fathers

  • 18 – 20 Participants aged 24yrs+; mix of ages

• Mix of child age

  • Min 10 participants each: Mix of first-time dads and those with 2 or more kids

• 10 participants with partial or no custody of their children

• Mix of race and ethnicities (Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, Other)

• Mix of marital status

• Mix of income level

• Mix of educational attainment

• Mix of geographic area – urban/suburban/rural; mix of regions of the US – Max of 15 participants from tier 1 cities (NYC, LA, CHIC, SF) – remaining a mix from lower tier and more rural populations.

A3. Improved Information Technology to Reduce Burden

All interviews and screeners will take place either by phone, by video, or online via screening questionnaires asked of online panelists. The follow up survey for the concept testing phase will be completed by email.

A4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

ACF does not have the specific information that will be collected through this formative research. We will not ask any questions that can be answered through our literature review.

A5. Involvement of Small Organizations

No small businesses or entities will be asked to respond to this information collection.

A6. Consequences of Less Frequent Data Collection

This is a one-time information collection.

A7. Special Circumstances

There are no special circumstances for the proposed data collection efforts.

A8. Federal Register Notice and 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 the overarching generic clearance for formative information collection. This notice was published on October 11, 2017, Volume 82, Number 195, page 47212, and provided a sixty-day period for public comment. A subsequent notice, updated with more specific information, was published on June 18, 2019, Volume 84, Number 117, page 28307, and provided a thirty-day period for public comment. During the notice and comment periods, no substantive comments were received.

A9. Incentives for Respondents

Each respondent will be provided with $75 cash following their participation. This amount is in line with the industry standard, relative to focus group and market research interview participation by people in the target market. These industry-standard incentives help to ensure that respondents can be recruited efficiently and ensure their participation in the groups and interviews. These standards exist to account for incidental costs that are likely to be incurred by participants while participating in interviews, based on the location of and expenses in each market.

A10. Privacy of Respondents

Information collected will be kept private to the extent permitted by law. Respondents will be informed of all planned uses of data, that their participation is voluntary, and that their information will be kept private to the extent permitted by law.

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 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.

Any data stored electronically related to the personal information of respondents will be destroyed after 30 days. All contractors will minimize to the extent possible the inclusion of sensitive information on paper records and will protect any paper records, field notes, or other documents that contain sensitive or personally identifiable information. All personally identifiable information will be in secure storage and have strict limits on access.  

Information will not be maintained in a paper or electronic system from which data are actually or directly retrieved by an individuals’ personal identifier.

A11. Sensitive Questions

There are no sensitive questions in this data collection.

A12. Estimation of Information Collection Burden

Exploratory Phase

Two of the collections during this phase will involve collections with the general public: the 10 expert interviews (1 hour long each), and the 16 one-on-one interviews (1 hour for the fathers and 45 minutes for the family members). We will recruit 18 people for the one on one interviews with fathers and family members, to fill 16 interview slots. The family members will not be recruited via a screener; we will secure permission and contact information for the family members at the end of each father interview. Recruiting will be done via a set of questions asked of Respondent.io online panelists and is estimated to take no more than 10 minutes each.

Concept Testing Phase

For the concept testing phase, we plan to conduct 30 video chat one-on-ones, each lasting 60 minutes. We will recruit 30 fathers to fill the interview slots. Recruiting will be done from panels via online screening questionnaires estimated to take no more than 10 minutes each. After the video one on one has been completed, the interviewer will follow up by emailing all respondents, with their permission, with two additional questions to answer. The estimated burden to answer these two questions is a maximum of 10 minutes each. The total burden for this information collection is estimated to be 40 hours total.

Total Burden Requested Under this Information Collection

Instrument	Total Number of Respondents	Number of Responses Per Respondent	Average Burden Hours Per Response	Annual Burden Hours		Average Hourly Wage	Total Annual Cost
Exploratory Phase
Screener: Experts	10	1	.167	1.67		$43.80	$73.15
Interview: Experts	10	1	1	10		$43.80	$438.00
Screener: Fathers	18	1	.167	2		$29.48	$58.96
Interview: Father	8	1	1	8		$29.48	$235.84
Interview: Family Member	8	1	.75	6		Estimated $23.62 for 2 of the 6 hours, see below	$47.24
Concept Testing Phase
Screener	30	1	.167	5		$29.48	$147.40
One-on-One interview	30	1	1	30		$29.48	$884.40
Follow-Up Questions	30	1	.167	5		$29.48	$147.40
Estimated Annual Burden Total				65.33			$2032.39

Total Annual Cost

1. Fathers:

Interviews will be conducted with men across a full cross-section of ages, income levels, geographic regions, education levels, races and ethnicities, and job types. So while median income levels vary by educational attainment, geographic region, and race and ethnicity, among other factors, for these projects we are assuming our respondents will constitute a rough “average” of American males. Respondents will be ages 16-48; the closest available range from the Bureau of Labor Statistics is data for males in the two age groups of 16-24 ($1002/week in Q3 2019) and 25-54 ($1047/week in Q3 2019) Source: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf. Respondents will be 1/3 age 16-24 and 2/3 ages 25-48. For this reason, our estimate for the fathers in the exploratory phase and the concept testing phase is as follows:

Age range	Median weekly income	Proportion of total
Age 16-24	$1002/week	.33
Age 25-48 (using age 25-54 data, closest available)	$1047/week	.67

Average weekly income, with age 16-24 data counting as one-third and 25-48 counting as two-thirds, is $1,032) [Calculation: (($1002 + $1047 + $1047)/3)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines full-time work as “those who usually work 35 or more hours per week” (source: https://www.bls.gov/cps/definitions.htm) so 35 hours is used for the purposes of hourly wage calculation.

Thus average hourly income for this group is $1032/35 = $29.48.

2. Experts

For the experts, we use Q3 2019 data for males in the US in professions called “management, professional and related occupations”, https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf, and Q3 2019 data for this group is a median of $1,533/week.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics defines full-time work as “those who usually work 35 or more hours per week” (source: https://www.bls.gov/cps/definitions.htm) so 35 hours is used for the purposes of hourly wage calculation.

Thus the hourly income for this group would be $1533/35 = $43.80.

3. Family Members

This is unknown, but a best estimate number is provided. Some family members will be minors, who are not employed. Some family members will be partners or spouses, who may be employed full time, part time, or not at all. The majority of family member respondents will likely not be employed. Total burden hours for this group as a whole are 6 hours. The best estimate number provided is based on a fairly likely scenario in which one-third of the family respondents will be adult women age 18+ who are employed full-time. Q3 2019 data from BLS states that women earned a median of $827/week, or $23.62 per hour. The calculation included in the table above assumes one-third, or 2 of the 6 total burden hours, would be for women earning $23.62/hour. (Source: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf)

A13. Cost Burden to Respondents or Record Keepers

There are no additional costs to respondents.

A14. Estimate of Cost to the Federal Government

The total cost for the data collection activities under this current request will be $103,640. This includes costs for the development of the information collections, OMB approval, data collection, and analysis.

A15. Change in Burden

This is for an individual information collection under the umbrella formative generic clearance for program support (0970-0531).

A16. Plan and Time Schedule for Information Collection, Tabulation and Publication

The following timeline is dependent on OMB approval of this information collection and will be adjusted, if necessary.

Exploratory Phase:

Literature review and immersion in support groups: week of Jan 13

Expert interviews: week of Jan 20

Recruiting for father interviews: weeks of Jan 13 + Jan 20

Conduct Father interviews: week of Jan 27

Conduct Family member interviews: week of Feb 3

Analysis: weeks of Feb 10 + Feb 17

Report: week of Feb 24

Concept Testing Phase:

Recruiting for father interviews: week of May 11 + May 18

Conduct Father interviews: week of May 25 + June 1

Follow-up Father interviews: week of June 8

Analysis: weeks of June 13 + June 20

Report: week of June 27

A17. Reasons Not to Display OMB Expiration Date

All instruments will display the expiration date for OMB approval.

A18. Exceptions to Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions

No exceptions are necessary for this information collection.

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