NonSub Change - Outreach Materials

To: Jordan Cohen

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

From: Mary Mueggenborg

Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE)

Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

Date: June 7, 2022

Subject: NonSubstantive Change Request –Supporting Youth to be Successful in Life (SYSIL) Study (OMB #0970-0574)

This memo requests approval of nonsubstantive changes to the approved information collection, Supporting Youth to be Successful in Life (SYSIL) Study (OMB #0970-0574).

Background

OMB approved the impact and implementation studies and instruments for the OPRE Study, Supporting Youth to be Successful in Life (SYSIL) on July 27, 2021. Baseline data collection with youth for the impact study began in September 2021 and data collection for the 6-month follow-up survey began in April 2022. After beginning outreach for the 6-month survey we found it will be necessary to send frequent reminders to youth in order to prompt them to complete the survey over the web. We would like to use additional reminder emails and text messages, beyond what was approved in the initial ICR, so youth feel we are targeting our outreach to them instead of sending the same reminder multiple times which could be construed as spam.

Simultaneously we started outreach for the implementation study in May 2022 and realized we would like to provide potential interview and focus group participants with a one-page document to share information about the activities they will be participating in. These documents were not part of the initial ICR.

Overview of Requested Changes

This memo requests the following nonsubstantive changes:

• Four additional sets of reminder emails and text messages to be sent to youth for follow-up survey data collection.

• One-page informational documents to be sent to program staff and youth participating in implementation study interviews and focus groups.

Additional sets of reminder emails and text messages

We propose additional sets of reminder emails and text messages to be used for follow-up survey outreach (Appendix C). These are entirely new notifications that will be sent to youth throughout the follow-up period and will build on prior outreach that has already been conducted.

The justification for these additional reminders is that we anticipate youth will be more responsive to repeated reminders that have varied, more targeted messaging so they understand that the survey is part of an important study and not junk mail or spam messages.

One-page informational documents for the implementation study

We propose adding one-page informational documents to describe the interviews and focus groups that program staff and youth will participate in as part of the implementation study (Appendix D). These informational documents will be sent to prospective participants during the recruitment process for the implementation study data collection activities.

The justification for these additional implementation study recruitment materials is to inform prospective participants about what they will be participating in as part of the interviews and focus groups. We believe if they have more information about the activities up-front they will be more likely to participate.

An updated version of SSA, SSB, Appendix C, and a new Appendix D containing the one-page informational documents for the implementation study accompany this memo.

The proposed changes will not affect the approved burden. We would appreciate approval by June 14, 2022, to allow data collection for the 6-month follow-up survey and implementation study to continue in a seamless manner.