Supporting Statement B

Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) Survey

Formative Data Collections for Program Support

0970 - 0531

Supporting Statement

Part B

February 2023

Submitted By:

Office of Refugee Resettlement

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:

Ken Tota, Deputy Director

Office of Refugee Resettlement

Overview of Study Objectives

In May 2022, the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2022 (AUSAA), Public Law 117-12 authorized the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to provide resettlement assistance to specific Ukrainian arrivals, including Ukrainian Humanitarian Parolees. The nature and scale of the rapid influx of Ukrainian arrivals is unprecedented and is made more challenging by the reduction in resettlement capacity over the past several years. Ukrainian parolees are eligible for ORR services but are not automatically connected with resettlement agencies as are traditional refugee clients who participate in the Reception and Placement (R&P) program. As a result, states may need additional resources and T/TA to adequately meet the needs of these arrivals. ORR seeks to better identify ORR-eligible Ukrainians’ immediate and intermediate needs, their knowledge of ORR services and benefits, and the level of federal support required to ensure their economic and housing stability and advance their overall health and wellbeing.

ORR needs relevant, timely, and up-to-date information to inform appropriate and targeted T/TA and to inform refinement of programs and grantee process. The information collected through the proposed Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) Survey would help ORR to identify service needs and gaps in resettlement services, and grantee processes (such as case management follow-up frequency).

The U4U Survey is designed to collect data from adult (18 years and older) Ukrainian parolees who arrived under AUSSA. The purpose of the data collection is to inform refinement and improvements to ORR’s programs and services (in the areas such as case management process refinement on client follow-up frequency). The data collected will help ORR identify targeted T/TA needs by geolocation, service providers, and professional assistance. Information collected will also inform ORR to address the service gaps through program improvements and development where ORR currently does not have designated program, service component, or service referral networks. The information collection may inform a full information collection request in the future if a need is identified for more information. The survey responses will answer the following key learning questions:

• Do ORR’s employment and language training programs facilitate employment in the household and provide language learning opportunities?

• Do ORR’s health and housing programs and services support the immediate and long-term needs of Ukrainian parolees?

• How can ORR improve resettlement placement and assurance process (such as initial resettlement location designation) and case management practice?

• What underlying needs of Ukrainian parolees are not met with existing ORR programs?

• What types of training, technical assistance, and resources are needed by grantee and service providers?

ORR estimates an approximate 10 percent response rate, based on its previous experience with the Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) survey distributed to Afghan humanitarian parolee principal applicants in June 2022.

1. Respondent Universe and Sampling Methods

Target Population

The respondent universe of data collection is 77,952 Ukrainian humanitarian parolees who have arrived in the United States through the Uniting for Ukraine (U4U) program since March 24, 2022, and as of November 4, 2022. The survey will be sent to adults 18 years and older and will close once ORR has received 800 respondents, per OMB clearance requirements.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will share Ukrainian parolees’ contact information from the Form I-134 “Declaration of Financial Support” with ORR. Unlike refugee populations (and Afghan parolees under Operation Allies Welcome) who resettle in the United States, Ukrainian parolees are not processed by the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). As such, ORR does not have the information regarding Ukrainian parolees, such as resettlement location, family relationships, service needs, or contact information, that it would customarily receive from PRM to identify and serve eligible individuals through the Refugee Resettlement Program efficiently and effectively. ORR cannot fully execute its mandate to provide services and assistance to eligible populations if it does not know who has entered the U.S. Federal partner data sharing is critical to the intent of The Refugee Act and the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2022 (AUSAA), Public Law 117-128.

Respondents are not sampled. All Ukrainian parolees aged 18 and older who arrived under the U4U program between March 24, 2022, and November 4, 2022, with a valid U.S. phone and emails on a DHS I-134 Supporter Form, may be invited to participate in the online survey. See section B3 for information about expected response rates.

Appropriateness of Study Design and Methods for Planned Uses

This information is not intended to be used as the principal basis for public policy decisions and is not expected to meet the threshold of influential or highly influential scientific information. Further, the data collected does not include impact evaluation and will not be used to assess participant outcomes. The U4U Survey is one of the few data sources which include feedback from Ukrainian parolees who may not have accessed ORR programs. This feedback will help inform on this population’s needs and status (e.g., housing situation, employment, health insurance coverage), gaps in assistance, and uptake and barriers to service access. Survey response data will help inform culturally and linguistically appropriate services and assistance under Sections 8 U.S.C. 1522(c)-(e) of the Immigration and Nationality Act and services under the Additional Ukraine Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2022 (AUSAA), Public Law 117-128. Limited and aggregated tabulations and descriptive summaries might be shared with states, resettlement agencies, service providers, and partnering federal resettlement agencies upon request and approval to facilitate bilateral discussions and inform ORR decisions on specific targeted assistance related to program implementation, refinement of current grantee process, and provision of programmatic or evaluation-related T/TA to these stakeholders. The information collection may inform a full information collection request in the future if a need is identified for more information. Key limitation(s) will be included in written products associated with this data collection.

2. Procedures for Collection of Information

Data Collection Processes

ORR will send online survey links to all Ukrainian parolees aged 18 and older who have contact information in the DHS I-134 forms through SMS and/or email in respondents’ preferred language (Ukrainian, Russian, or English). Respondents will then be able to select the survey language and provide their consent to survey participation before they can start the survey. Respondents will be informed of planned uses of data, that their participation is voluntary, and that their information will be kept private. The survey will be open for two weeks or until ORR has received 800 responses (the survey will close once ORR has received 800 responses). A maximum of three reminders will be sent if no response is received before the survey closes (please see Appendix for survey invite and reminder).

Data Handling

All survey response options are either multiple choice or set dropdown responses, thereby eliminating the possibility of invalid answers. Skip logic is built into the tool, and it automatically skips questions that would be inappropriate for the individual to answer based on their previous responses. The skip logic functions in two ways: the survey software will send survey respondents to a future point in the survey based on how they answer a question and survey respondents may choose to skip certain questions. All answers are stored in a structured database for post-survey analysis. Consequently, the design of the survey and the storage of the results preclude any errors due to data entry, coding, or processing.

Data Analysis

The ORR team will analyze the survey result data, including cross-tabulation for all questions. Survey analysis will include a comparison of the survey respondent demographic data to the overall I-134 demographic data, to provide context on the representativeness of the respondent sample by observable demographic variables including age, sex and marital status. Survey analysis will include both the raw data results and weighted results (by relevant demographic observable variables).

Data Use

ORR will prepare an internal report analyzing the results of the survey with survey results and cross-tabulation, distributed to ORR staff.

Under this umbrella generic IC, information is meant to inform ACF activities and may be incorporated into documents or presentations that are made public such as through conference presentations, websites, or social media. The following are some examples of ways in which we may share information resulting from these data collections: technical assistance plans, presentations, infographics, project specific reports, or other documents relevant to the field, such as federal leadership and staff, grantees, local implementing agencies, and/or T/TA providers. We may also request information for the sole purpose of publication in cases where we are working to create a single source for users (clients, programs, researchers) to find information about resources such as services in their area, TA materials, different types of programs or systems available, or research using ACF data. In sharing findings, we will describe the study methods and limitations regarding generalizability and as a basis for policy.

3. Methods to Maximize Response Rates and Deal with Nonresponse

Response Rates

As noted above, the survey will be sent to a convenience sample of all Ukrainian parolees. Very few surveys are comparable to this specific respondent universe with the proposed online survey mode. ORR expects response rates to be around 10 percent, as the Survey of Afghans Resettled Under Operations Allies Welcome – sent to Afghan parolees via email, SMS and WhatsApp – had a response rate of 18.4 percent for participation (responded to at least one question) and 9.5 percent for completion (responded to all survey questions except for optional contact information). Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and Immigration Policy Lab also previously conducted a survey to refugees’ mobile phones through WhatsApp, which had a 10 percent response rate. The survey will be sent via email and SMS, with a maximum of three reminders to encourage recipient response. ORR will also send informational communications to stakeholders such as resettlement agencies to help outreach efforts.

Non-Response

As participants will not be randomly sampled and findings are not intended to be representative, non-response bias will not be calculated. Respondent demographics will be documented and reported in written materials associated with the data collection. The survey will report on overall and question-specific response data and include both raw and weighted results to minimize some non-response bias.

4. Test of Procedures or Methods to be Taken

Development of Data Collection Instruments

The survey tool was developed by the ORR Monitoring, Evaluation, and Analysis (MEA) team, with inputs from ORR leadership and Refugee Arrivals Data System (RADS) team members. The team has received input from ORR staff from the Eastern Europe region to provide guidance on phrasing and translation accuracy to ensure the questions were understandable and culturally appropriate. The tool is designed to answer ORR learning questions and gather key information about Ukrainian parolees. ORR developed the survey questions to solicit information across key well-being domains (i.e., housing, health, mental health, income and economic security) and key demographic data (i.e., household composition, state location, English proficiency) while also limiting the survey’s length to encourage the greatest possible response rate to all questions. The survey is designed to take around 10 minutes, with 15-22 questions (depending on respondent skip logic). The survey is designed with a skip logic, with seven follow-up questions (i.e., on reasons for non-uptake of services) that only be presented if relevant to reduce possible measurement error. Where relevant, ORR has used question wording from the previous Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) survey and Annual Survey of Refugees (ASR) for comparability to other populations.

5. Individuals Consulted on Statistical Aspects and Individuals Collecting and/or Analyzing Data

Individuals consulted on the statistical aspects of the design:

• Daniel Creed, PhD – [email protected]

• Joseph Wantz, PhD – [email protected]

• Xiayun Tan, PhD – [email protected] – Note: As of January 2023, Dr. Tan has transferred to a new position with SAMSHA and is no longer working with the ORR team.

Individuals who will collect and analyze the data:

• Daniel Creed, PhD

• Iulia Kramar, MS

• Sara Tompkins, JD

• Joseph Wantz, PhD

• Elizabeth Wojnar, MALD

Attachments

• U4U Survey Instrument

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