ACF American Rescue Plan Tribal Learning Collaborative: Leveraging Grant Flexibilities and Promoting Innovation in Pandemic Recovery

ACF American Rescue Plan Tribal Learning Collaborative: Leveraging Grant Flexibilities and Promoting Innovation in Pandemic Recovery Discussion Questions

PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT OF 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13) STATEMENT OF PUBLIC BURDEN: The purpose of this information collection is to advance the breakout session discussions and identify the technical assistance needs to support grant recipients as they determine how to make the most out of their ARP funding according to their community’s needs. The public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated at 45 minutes, including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and reviewing the collection of information. These questions will be asked during the breakout sessions at one meeting on June 9, 2022, so the total estimated time for all participating grant recipients is two 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 0970-0531 and the expiration date is X/XX/202X. If you have any comments on this collection of information, please contact Anna Moriarty, contracted project manager at the Administration for Native Americans at [email protected].

Facilitator Introduction

[State the following to start the dialogue.]

Hello and welcome to the breakout session about celebrating and optimizing the use of your American Rescue Plan Act (ARP) funds. My name is [insert name], and I will be facilitating our conversation.

My colleague [insert name of note taker] will be taking notes for us.

One goal of this session is to hear from you and your colleagues to determine how they have used or plan to use their American Rescue Plan funds to support their communities. We are interested in hearing about promising strategies or models that you have successfully developed and implemented with ARP funding in your communities. Learning what is possible on other ARP projects or utilizing ARP funding may help you think about what components you can apply in your own communities. A secondary goal of this session is for ACF to learn what types of tools, resources and training opportunities would be helpful to you in support of your use of ARP funds. Over the next 45 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, concerns, and needs.

[Please read this paragraph in verbatim to participants.]

Your participation is completely voluntary. These questions have been approved by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget. We are taking notes that will be used to inform our development of technical assistance and support tools. We may also follow up with those of you who share success stories to learn more about what works well. The breakout sessions will be recorded, with participant approval, if allowed by the Zoom platform system to support record management.

Are there any questions or concerns before we get started?

[Plan to devote a few minutes to answer participants’ questions.]

Facilitation Questions

Facilitate the group discussion by asking the following questions during each breakout session. Reserve time to allow responses to each question before moving on to the following question.

• Question 1: In thinking about your American Rescue Plan-supported work, what has been your biggest success or most meaningful achievement to date utilizing your American Rescue Plan funding that we can celebrate with the wider group? Follow-up: Can you share any successful implementation strategies you have instituted while managing your ARP funds or ARP-funded projects with the wider group?

• Question 2: Have you experienced any major obstacles in implementing your ARP projects or leveraging your ARP funds? What have some obstacles been? How have you dealt with them? Any lessons learned on implementation that you'd share with others in this conversation?

• Question 3: What additional resources or support could you or your team use to help implement your ARP projects or utilize your ARP funding? Do you have any suggestions for ACF staff on how they can better support you?

Rationale: These questions are meant to have participants interact and learn from one another to exchange success stories and strategies to support the implementation/utilization of their ARP funding. For ACF programs, this is an opportunity to listen and learn from Tribal grant recipients to improve future services and outreach initiatives. ACF staff present may also provide relevant, program-specific training and technical assistance information in real-time (or provide the appropriate contact information for individualized follow-up as requested during the session).

Wrap Up the Discussion

Reserve a few minutes at the end to respectfully wrap up this discussion before returning back to the main room for the report out and discussion on next steps.

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. ACF staff will use this information to inform technical assistance and our outreach efforts to support your use of ARP funds.

[Help participants transition back to the main room and prepare to share a summary of what was discussed for next steps portion]

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