Child Care Stabilization Grants: Interviewer Guide
The Office of Child Care (OCC) holds monthly meetings with Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Lead Agency administrators to provide ongoing technical assistance (TA) and support. To learn more about the success stories, challenges and additional TA needs for the recent child care stabilization grants that were part of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), OCC would like to conduct structured interviews during these meetings for the next six months. OCC will use information collected during these interviews to inform technical assistance and support opportunities for CCDF Lead Agencies.
PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT OF 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13) STATEMENT OF PUBLIC BURDEN: The purpose of this information collection is to help the Office of Child Care (OCC) identify the technical assistance needs to support the implementation of the child care stabilization grants. Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 20 minutes per grantee response, including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and reviewing the collection of information. These questions will be asked at monthly meetings over a 6-month period, so the total estimated time per grantee is 2 hours. This is a voluntary collection of information. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information subject to the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB # is 0970-0401 and the expiration date is 05/31/2021. If you have any comments on this collection of information, please contact Dawn Ramsburg, Office of Child Care by email at [email protected].
The structured interviews will be used to do the following:
Hear directly from CCDF Lead Agencies to increase OCC’s understanding of what training and technical assistance is needed to support implementation of the child care stabilization grants and learn about success stories.
Identify CCDF Lead Agencies’ needs for implementation of child care stabilization grants and discuss strategies, supports, existing resources, and new resources to help meet those needs.
The CCDF administrators from the 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico will be asked to respond to questions during a 20-minute interview as part of their regular monthly calls with OCC staff.
Key Questions for All Interviews
Participants will be asked the following questions:
What progress have you made in making grants to child care providers?
Will you be using an intermediary to deliver subgrants to child care providers? If so, which intermediary/intermediary organizations or governments will you be using?
How many applications have been received? What is the link to the website where your application is posted? Approximately how many grants have you awarded?
How have the funds been used or what impacts have you seen as a result?
What are the challenges or roadblocks you are experiencing?
What do you need to move forward with grant awards?
What strategies are you using to target child care providers serving low-income communities? What strategies are you using to support providers who speak languages other than English?
The Interviewer Role
The role of the interviewer is to do the following: draw out knowledge and insight from the participant; keep the discussion moving in a direction that is constructive; and attains results. The interviewer uses their various skills, tools, strategies, and natural abilities to create a positive exchange of ideas and experiences from the participant based on their ongoing relationship. Above all else, interviewers should maintain fidelity with the questions in the “Key Questions for All Interviews” section.
These questions have been purposefully developed and approved by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget in order to obtain the necessary information. Using the same questions will also ensure consistency in information gathered across all ten ACF Regions.
Below is some information, and suggested language, that may be useful to interviewers as they prepare for these discussions.
Logistics and Overview
Enter in the following information to help you prepare.
Call-In Information: [insert call-in information]
|
|
Start time: [insert time] |
End time: [insert time]
|
Interviewer: [insert name] |
Notetaker: [insert name]
|
Duration: 20 minutes
|
|
Purpose: Office of Child Care will learn more about specific experiences, strategies and challenges that Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) Lead Agencies administrators face when implementing the child care stabilization grants and what support would be helpful to Lead Agencies throughout the process. |
|
Interviewer Introduction
[State the following to start the dialogue.]
Hello and welcome to the discussion about the implementation of the child care stabilization grants for CCDF Lead Agency administrators. My name is [insert name], and I will be guiding our conversation.
My colleague [insert name of notetaker] will be taking notes for us.
Our goal during this session is to discuss what types of tools and training opportunities you are looking for to support the development and implementation of your state’s child care stabilization grants. Over the next 20 minutes, we want to hear about your challenges and what supports are most important to you. As we talk, I may ask some follow-up questions.
There are no right or wrong answers to any of the questions posed during this discussion. Please share openly and honestly so that we can fully understand your experiences with the implementation of child care stabilization grants.
[Please read this paragraph in verbatim to participants.]
As a reminder, your participation is completely voluntary. All information discussed during our conversation will be used to inform the Office of Child Care’s technical assistance efforts. We are taking notes that will be used to inform the development of technical assistance and support tools.
Are there any questions or concerns before we get started?
[Plan to devote a few minutes to answer participants’ questions.]
Interview Questions
Facilitate the group discussion by asking the following questions. Reserve time to allow responses to each question.
process and PROGRESS
Strategies: You may want to ask participants to think about their responses by category, such as data gathering, data informed decision making, legislative efforts, budget building, building partnerships, and collaboration. Or at the end of the discussion, you and your notetaker may identify the categories that emerged from their responses.
Rationale: This question is designed to gather information about CCDF Administrators’ planning processes as well as some general information about their state and local contexts that may be affecting progress. |
|
RECEIPT OF APPLICATIONS/GRANT AWARDS/iMPACT
Strategies: If the state has opened its application process, ask them approximately how many applications have been received to date. If possible, ask them to breakdown by any relevant demographics – targeted communities, type of provider, etc. If they have started making grant awards, ask them approximately grants they have awarded to date. Ok to use broad categories to quantify if exact numbers not available – e.g., more than half of licensed FCC providers, over 100 grants awarded, etc.
Rationale: This question is designed to gather information about states and territories progress towards implementing child care sustainability grants. |
|
Barriers
Additional considerations: Are there any existing tools or supports you have used so far? What additional resources are needed? Rationale: This question is intended to identify barriers in the implementation of child care stabilization grants. |
|
Supports
Rationale: These questions are intended to capture Lead Agencies’ desired tools, resources, and supports when completing their CCDF Plans. It is also intended to help catalogue strategies that contribute to positive CCDF Plan development, which can be shared with other grantees. The first question is aimed more at supports that OCC or other entities can provide Lead Agencies, while the second question is designed to better understand the supports that Lead Agencies are providing to providers. |
Wrap Up the Discussion
Reserve a few minutes at the end to respectfully wrap up this discussion before moving on to other topics.
Thank You and Next Steps
[Please read this paragraph in verbatim to participants.]
This has been a very rich discussion. Thank you all for sharing so openly. The Office of Child Care staff will use this information to inform the technical assistance to support implementation of the child care stabilization grants.
[Help participants transition to the next meeting segment. For example, alert them about the next activities on the Region-specific agenda.]
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Author | Anderson, Rae |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2022-05-04 |