Survey to Inform Office of Head Start Data Collection Activities and Training and Technical Assistance
Formative Data Collections for Program Support
0970 – 0531
Supporting Statement
Part A - Justification
February 2022
Submitted By:
Office of Head Start
Administration for Children and Families
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
4th Floor, Mary E. Switzer Building
330 C Street, SW
Washington, D.C. 20201
A1. Necessity for the Data Collection
The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) seeks approval for a survey on Head Start grant recipient experiences related to vaccines and supporting families accessing certain benefits, as well as to obtain feedback on proposed changes to OHS data collection activities. This information is necessary to identify challenges with the pandemic related to vaccines and supporting families access certain benefits which can be used to inform training and technical assistance supports provided by OHS. The information is also necessary to identify concerns with the proposed changes to OHS data collections which can be used to inform and refine such changes.
This request is part of an ongoing effort to survey a sample of Head Start grant recipients on a periodic basis (on a quarterly basis at most) for time-sensitive data not available through an existing information collection. Typically, the surveys will cover topics and issues most affecting programs at the time of data collection. Moreover, no survey should be identical as the information collected will be primarily used to identify and inform OHS program support for Head Start grant recipients to address newly rising and time-sensitive issues and needs.
The sample of respondents for these surveys will constantly change to minimize burden on any single Head Start grant recipient. This means that the next survey will contain a different set of questions and sent to a different set of respondents. The goal is to only select any individual Head Start grant recipient at most once every two years through this sampling method.
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
Overview of Purpose and Use
The purpose of this survey is to collect information to help inform OHS activities in support of Head Start grant recipients. Although the survey covers three topic areas that are not directly related, grantees are the best respondents to provide useful feedback to inform OHS support activities in these areas. The survey covers three topic areas:
Feedback on new questions OHS plans to collect from all Head Start grant recipients
Approaches to collecting vaccination rates and associated challenges
Supports programs have in place to help families access certain benefits available during the pandemic
Information collected is expected to provide OHS with:
An understanding of existing challenges and needed supports related to grant recipients’ work involving vaccines including the collection of vaccination rates.
OHS intends to use this information internally to inform the development and refinement of ongoing support to Head Start grant recipients related to vaccines including the collection and tracking of vaccination rates. Example support activities based on the information collected include webinars, e-blasts, sharing of existing guidance and resources (such as those available through the Center for Disease Control), or the development of new resources to support grant recipients.
Information is not intended to be used for monitoring, compliance, or performance-related purposes of the respondents.
Information will not be made public.
Information about supports that are in place to help families access certain benefits available during the pandemic.
OHS intends to use the information from this sub-survey to inform the ongoing OHS led Investing with Families Initiative which includes webinars, sharing resources, and social media awareness campaigns to support programs in helping families access certain benefits available during the pandemic. More information about this initiative is available at https://eclkc.ohs.acf.hhs.gov/family-support-well-being/article/investing-families-initiative.
Although the information collected from this section will not be made public, the information collected will inform public-facing materials, such as social media awareness campaigns.
Feedback related to proposed changes to the existing information collection: Head Start Program Information Report (OMB #0970-0427). These information collections are used to assess program performance are currently in process to submit extension and revision requests to OMB. The proposed changes include new questions on Head Start grant recipients partnering with Part C agencies in their service area to coordinate services of children with disabilities, value of benefits provided to recruit and retain a qualified workforce, and Quality Rating Improvement System (QRIS) participation and licensing status for each center operated by the Head Start grant recipient.
From this sub-survey, OHS hopes to understand any concerns grantees have regarding proposed changes. OHS will use the information collected to inform final decisions about changes to make and the best method to provide guidance on the updated information collections.
This proposed information collection meets the following goals of ACF’s generic clearance for formative data collections for program support (0970-0531):
Delivery of targeted assistance related to program implementation or the development or refinement of program and grant recipient processes
Planning for provision of programmatic or evaluation-related training or technical assistance (T/TA).
Obtaining grant recipient input on the development of program data collection activities for assessing program performance.
Data Collection Effort
This request includes one survey: Survey to Inform Office of Head Start Training and Technical Assistance and Data Collection Activities. As noted above, the survey covers three different topic areas which are not directly related, but they are being combined into one survey to reduce burden on Head Start grant recipients from having to manage multiple surveys. This survey will be administered to a random sample of 400 grantees for an anticipated response rate of 250 respondents. Uniquely large and small grant recipients will be excluded from the sample so they cannot be identified. Grant recipients will be sent a link to a web-based survey and asked to complete the survey within two weeks. The survey link will be sent through the correspondence functionality of the Head Start Enterprise System (HSES). Grant recipients are familiar with this system and have received requests to respond to data collections through this feature in the past. If necessary, a follow-up notice will be sent to increase the response rate. Grant recipients that have questions about the survey are able to contact their regional office.
A3. Improved Information Technology to Reduce Burden
OHS will leverage the HSES which grantees are already familiar with and use regularly. This system will be used to send the web-based survey to local program directors. These individuals is a primary contact for correspondence from OHS and they determine if anyone else in their program should provide the responses for a particular topic area covered by the survey. To help facilitate this, a separate survey link is provided for each topic area covered by the survey (three survey links total).
A4. Efforts to Identify Duplication
None of this information is available from another source, especially considering that the information collected is time-sensitive and not part of regular operations. As such, no duplicate responses of existing information collections are expected.
A5. Involvement of Small Organizations
Not applicable. No impact to small organizations expected.
A6. Consequences of Less Frequent Data Collection
Not applicable. This information will only be collected once from this set of respondents.
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 13, 2020, Volume 85, Number 198, page 64480, and provided a sixty-day period for public comment. During the notice and comment periods, no substantive comments were received.
Not applicable as this is not a research study.
A9. Incentives for Respondents
No incentives for respondents are proposed for this information collection.
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.
Additionally, uniquely large and small grant recipients will be excluded from the sample so they cannot be identified. Also, the state in which the program is primarily located will not be requested from Head Start grant recipients that operate American Indian and Alaska Native or Migrant and Seasonal Head Start programs so those grant recipients are not identifiable.
A11. Sensitive Questions
There are no sensitive questions in this data collection.
A12. Estimation of Information Collection Burden
Total Estimated Burden
The survey will be sent to program directors for about 250 program responses to the survey. It is possible program directors would have someone else in their program help respond to a particular topic area which is why we provide links to submit separate responses per topic area if needed. As such, the burden estimate assumes that on average, there will be two respondents per program involved in a response to the survey. The estimated 15 minutes to respond to the survey would be split evenly between the two respondents.
Instrument |
Number of Respondents |
Number of Responses Per Respondent |
Average Burden Hours Per Response |
Annual Burden Hours |
Average Hourly Wage |
Total Annual Cost |
Survey to Inform Office of Head Start Training and Technical Assistance and Data Collection Activities |
500 |
1 |
0.125 |
63 |
$47.26 |
$2,977.38 |
Total Annual Cost
The total annual cost is estimated at $2,953.75. This is based on median hourly wage of preschool education administrators from BLS job code 11-9031 (https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes119031.htm, May 2020) at $23.63 per hours for 63 total hours. The hourly rate is multiplied by two to account for fringe benefits and overhead.
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 $1,000. Federal staff costs are estimated to be about 10 hours of the time of a Program Specialist (GS-14) to oversee the activities of this data collection including analysis and reporting for internal use.
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 data is only intended for internal use only and no publications are expected as a result of this data collection.
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.
| File Type | application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| File Title | OPRE OMB Clearance Manual |
| Author | DHHS |
| File Modified | 0000-00-00 |
| File Created | 2022-05-04 |