SSA Prog Supp GenIC - NRFC Media Campaign Feedback

Feedback on Materials for Father Involvement National Media Campaign

Formative Data Collections for Program Support

0970 – 0531

Supporting Statement

Part A - Justification

October 2023

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

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 have been developing public service ads (PSAs) designed to help fathers understand that their presence and involvement is essential to the well-being of their children.

ACF has historically requested feedback on communication materials to be used as part of a national media campaign targeting young fathers¹. This information has been found very useful in refining materials prior to the launch of previous years’ media campaigns. As such, ACF proposes to request feedback on communication materials that will be used as part of the next national media campaign.

As noted by NRFC on their site, while young fathers face the same demands as all new fathers, young fathers in their teens and early twenties face additional challenges as they move into adulthood. They may not have finished high school, and they often are not married or even living with the mother of their child. In general, they tend to be emotionally and intellectually unprepared for parenthood.

Additionally, young fathers may feel excluded by the mother or the mother’s family. In some cases, a young father’s own family may try to discourage him from being involved due to financial or other concerns. Therefore, assisting young fathers remains a key component of many fatherhood programs. Thus, we will seek feedback from fathers ages 16-24.

This feedback is necessary for the ACF Office of Family Assistance (OFA), which oversees the NRFC and the PSAs created to make informed decisions with NRFC about the next national media campaign.

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

Overview of Purpose and Use 

The purpose of this feedback effort is to inform communication materials that will be used as part of a national media campaign targeting young fathers.

As noted above, the focus of the next campaign will be young fathers ages 16-24, so this feedback effort will focus on that age range.

We will ask about 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. And we will seek their feedback on existing PSAs targeting a broader father demographic to understand whether the existing creative platform of “Dadication” will motivate and encourage young fathers to be more involved with their children. 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

• How they respond to existing “Dadication” creative; whether it is relevant or motivating

ACF and NFRC will use the feedback to inform the development of materials for the next national media campaign, which includes PSAs and potentially, new website content.

This proposed information collection meets the following goals of ACF’s generic clearance for formative data collections for program support (0970-0531):  

• Obtaining feedback about practices to inform ACF program development or support. 

• Requesting information about resources, programs, or other ACF services or related activities to provide consolidated public sources of information.  

Methodology

The information collected will help determine what is most important for the PSA campaign to communicate to young fathers ages 16-24. We plan to recruit fathers who fit the following demographic target:

• Males between the ages of 16 to 24

• Fathers with children under 10 years old

• 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, Asian, Alaska Native, and Native American)

• 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

Information collection activities will include the following:

• 8 focus groups with respondents broken out as follows:

  • 2 groups of full-time fathers, mix of race/ethnicity

  • 3 groups of fathers with no custody or partial custody of their children, mix of race/ethnicity

  • 1 group of full-time Hispanic fathers who are Spanish-dominant

  • 1 group of Hispanic fathers with no custody or partial custody of their children, who are Spanish-dominant

  • 1 group of Alaska Native + Native American fathers

• 6 one-on-one phone interviews with:

  • 2 full-time fathers

  • 2 fathers with no custody or partial custody of their children

  • 1 full-time father who is Hispanic and Spanish-dominant

  • 1 father with partial or no custody, who is Hispanic and Spanish-dominant

A mix of focus groups and one-on-one interviews are preferred for this work because it will allow for both breadth and depth of feedback compared to other types of data collection. Conducting interviews online will allow for access to remote, rurally located respondents and efficient reach of respondents located across the United States.

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.

A4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

ACF does not have the specific information that will be collected through this formative information collection.

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 this information collection request to extend approval of the umbrella generic with minor changes. The notice was published on January 28, 2022, (87 FR 4603), and provided a sixty-day period for public comment. ACF did not receive any comments on the first notice. A second notice was published, allowing a thirty-day period for public comment, in conjunction with submission of the request to OMB. ACF did not receive any comments on the second notice. 

A9. Tokens of Appreciation for Respondents

Consistent with previous rounds of feedback efforts for this national media campaign, and consistent with Ad Council feedback efforts across a wide range of federal government agencies, OFA proposes to provide participants with tokens of appreciation. OFA recommends providing respondents with a $75 token of appreciation for their participation in the 45-minute one-on-one interviews, and a $125 token of appreciation for participation in a 90-minute focus group. This token of appreciation reflects OFA’s commitment to recognizing respondents’ time and effort to respond, and may also offset the incidental costs of their participation, such as arrangement of child care or transportation. This is in-line with the amounts approved and provided for the prior round of feedback in 2020. At that time, we offered $75 for participation in a one hour interview. The amounts proposed here reflect both inflation and the adjusted times for participation.

While not always appropriate for federal information collections, there are instances when providing a token of appreciation for participation in a federal information is appropriate because it can contribute to response rates and information quality. Through this collection, OFA is seeking the time and expertise of fathers who may be struggling financially and/or who may struggle with child care. Providing a token of appreciation for the population we are seeking to engage will meaningfully increase response rates and thus the quality of the information that is ultimately reported.

A10. Privacy of Respondents

Information collected will be kept private. Respondents will be informed of all planned uses of data, that their participation is voluntary, and that their information will be kept private.

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

48 fathers, 6 per group for 8 groups, will be recruited to participate in the focus groups, and 8 fathers will be recruited for the one on one interviews, in order to interview 4 fathers per focus group and a total of 6 fathers in the 6 one-on-one interviews. Prior to participating in a focus group or interview, all potential participants will take the same screener. We estimate up to 480 respondents will respond to the screener for participation in a focus group and that about 60 will respond to the screener for participation in a one-on-one interview. The screener is estimated to take an average of 10 minutes to complete. Focus groups will be 90 minutes each, and one-on-one interviews will be 45 minutes each.

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
Screener: Focus Groups	480	1	.167	80.2	$40.80	$3,272.16
Screener: One on ones	60	1	.167	10	$40.80	$408.00
Focus Groups (8 groups; 4 per group)	32	1	1.5	48	$40.80	$1,958.40
One-on-One interviews	6	1	.75	4.5	$40.80	$183.60
Estimated Annual Burden Total				142.7		$5,822.16

Total Annual Cost

Fathers:

Interviews will be conducted with men across a full cross-section of 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 16-24; the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides data for median weekly income for males ages 16-24 of $714/week in Q2 2023. Source: https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf

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 $714/35 = $20.40/hour. To account for fringe benefits and overhead the rate was multiplied by two, which is $40.80/hour. 

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 $53,920. This includes costs for 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:

Recruiting for father interviews: Begins upon OMB Approval

Conduct Father interviews: About 2 weeks following OMB Approval

Analysis: About 2 weeks following interviews

Report: Upon completion of analyses

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.

1 Prior requests to collect this information have been submitted and approved under this umbrella generic (0970-0531).

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