Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services Formula Grantees Performance Progress Report (PPR) Listening Sessions

MITRE-OFVPS Reporting Form Recipient Listening Session Guide – Tribes and Tribal Organizations

Agenda
Topic	Facilitator	Time 60 minutes total
Welcome and Brief Introductions/Icebreaker		10 minutes
Questions: Section 1 – Current Data Reporting and Collection Section 2 – Reporting Challenges and Barriers Section 3 – Reporting Opportunities and Future Focus		15 minutes 15 minutes 15 minutes
Wrap-Up/Next Steps		5 minutes

Overview of Listening Session Question Sections
Section 1 – Current Data Reporting and Collection	This section aims to gather information on methods used to report and collect data. In addition, the questions included aim to draw connections to other data collection systems that Tribes and Tribal Organizations may utilize.
Section 2 – Reporting Challenges and Barriers	This section aims to understand challenges and barriers faced when completing reporting forms. Specific to Tribes and Tribal Organizations, close attention is paid to collecting possible infrastructure or procedural barriers to reporting form completion.
Section 3 – Reporting Opportunities and Future Focus	This section aims to explore what participants and survivors would like OFVPS/Congress to know and what changes participants would like to see made to the forms.

Welcome and Background

MITRE:

Hi everyone! We will wait a couple more minutes for people to join.

Good morning/afternoon, and welcome everyone!

Thank you for joining us today for this listening session.

My name is _[name]____________, and I am a _[researcher or title]__ with the MITRE Corporation.

My team and I are facilitating this listening session on behalf of the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services (referred to in this conversation as OFVPS) team. MITRE is an independent, not for profit company that operates six Federally Funded Research and Development Centers. We work together with government sponsors to solve critical problems and provide technical expertise and unbiased advice.

The team members with me today are [names], who will be listening and taking notes to make sure that I don’t miss anything important.

During this session, I will ask questions about: 

• Your current data reporting and collection processes

• Challenges and barriers you experience completing the OFVPS Performance Progress Report (PPR) form

• Opportunities for future reporting and changes to the OFVPS Performance Progress Report form

A blank copy of the PPR was attached to this meeting invitation. We invite you to pull the form up to help guide your answers during this session.

Housekeeping and Disclaimer

Housekeeping

We’ll start our meeting with some housekeeping in a moment and then jump right into the discussion. Here you can see our full agenda of topics for the session [refer to slide].

Before we get into the discussion, we’d like to review some best practices to ensure we allow for a dynamic discussion while also ensuring everyone is able to participate and provide meaningful input.

• To optimize your meeting experience, please log in to Zoom through the app rather than dialing in.

• We encourage you to have your video on but understand there are many reasons why you might prefer to keep it off, and we fully support your choice. Please join the way that suits you best.

• Please introduce yourself when speaking and answering questions.

• Feel free to use the Zoom “raise hand” and chat functions to participate. We will do our best to ensure that everyone who wants to contribute to the conversation has the opportunity to share.

• Please keep your microphones muted while you are not speaking to prevent background noise.

• To allow everyone to participate in the time we have together, we ask that everyone be mindful of making space for others to share their ideas and offer their feedback.

• Attendees and facilitators introduce themselves. Ask if there is someone willing to give an opening prayer and another for a closing prayer. Ask if participants can introduce themselves in the chat and include their Tribe or designation.

Disclaimer  

[MITRE Facilitator reads]:

[OMB approval language]

Please note that participation in these listening sessions is completely voluntary and you may leave the call at any point. The estimated time for this session will be 60 minutes. Your participation in these listening sessions (or decision to not participate) will not affect your grant funding in any way. Personally identifiable information collected will be only “business card information,” i.e., respondents’ first and last names, email addresses, and institutional affiliations. MITRE plans to record today’s session for internal notetaking purposes only. Once we have verified our notes, we will destroy the recording. We will not attribute anything you share during this session to you or to your organization in the recommendations report we are preparing for OFVPS. Does anyone have any objections to MITRE recording this conversation? [If there are no objections, notetaker hits the record button. If there are any objections, the MITRE team will aim to capture more verbatim notes]. Any questions before we get started?

Discussion Section 1 – Current Data Reporting and Collection

• What is the most useful data you collect about your FVPSA funded work?

  • Probe: What specific activities do you collect data on?

  • Probe: How frequently is this data collected, and where is it stored?

  • Probe: Can you describe the process used to collect/input data about a service or event?

• What methods do you use to collect data about your programs (examples: surveys, listening sessions, social media)?

  • Probe: What approaches work well to gather data on your programs?

  • Probe: Tell me more about the tools (e.g., excel spreadsheet, other applications) you use to track your work and any challenges associated with those tools.

  • Probe: Do you track data about your work for any other programs (such as the Office of Violence Against Women, Indian Health Service, etc.)? If so, please describe them.

• How do you track the work that you plan to complete versus the work that is completed?

  • Probe: How can the reporting form be revised to accurately represent your planned activities as well as completed activities?

• [Facilitator screen shares OMB-approved SPD 15 language] Looking at this chart, tell us which parts you would be able to fill in based on your current data collection process? What would you need to change about your process to collect this data?

  • Mandatory Probe: What training and/or technical assistance would be helpful?

• Regarding the information and data you collect about your work, do you find it easy to answer the questions asked in the reporting form?

  • Probe: How does the data you collect align with the reporting form requirements?

  • Probe: Are there any discrepancies between the data you collect and the data required by the reporting form?

Discussion Section 2 – Reporting Challenges and Barriers

• Which sections of the reporting form do you find most unclear or difficult to complete? 

  • Probe: Looking at the current reporting form, tell me about anything that is confusing to you (examples: definitions, calculations, instructions).

  • Probe: Is there any information you currently include in the narrative responses that could be expressed in specific data checklists or fill-in boxes?

  • Probe: Are there topics from your work that need more space for narrative responses?

• What challenges do you have describing the work you do in the current reporting form (for example: definitions, instructions, and/or calculations)?

  • Probe: Related to those challenges, is there anything about the reporting form that could be updated to make completion easier? 

  • Probe: Can you provide specific examples of any challenges or difficulties you encounter when answering the questions in the reporting form, and how these issues impact your ability to accurately report your work?   

  • Probe: Which activities would you like to describe more in the reporting form?

    • Additional Probe: Are there changes to the form that would make the work you do to expand services and/or access for people with disabilities and/or culturally specific or underserved communities easier to report?

    • Additional Probe: In the current reporting form, are any areas unnecessary or not relevant for your work?

• What challenges or barriers do you face in completing and submitting the reporting forms (examples: infrastructure and connectivity issues, lack of staff, lack of training, etc.)?

Discussion Section 3 – Reporting Opportunities and Future Focus

• What would you like Congress and/or OFVPS program management team to know about your work?  

  • Probe: How can the form be changed to better tell stories about the work that coalitions do?

  • Probe: What additional information or data points would help Congress and OFVPS better understand the scope and impact of your work?

  • Probe: Are there any particular challenges, barriers, or gaps in services you face due to funding limitations that you think Congress and OFVPS should be aware of?

• What do you think survivors want Congress to know about their experiences with FVPSA-funded programs?    

  • Probe: Do you think survivor outcomes are adequately captured in sections F and G of the reporting form? [Provide brief descriptions of the questions if needed—see below]

    • Note for Facilitators: Section F in the PPR form is for narrative responses. For example, the first questions asks, “For services supported in whole or in part by your FVPSA grant, share a story about a client (without sharing any personally identifying information), service or community initiative that could be shared with other stakeholders.”

    • Note for Facilitators: Section G is for service outcome data asking to enter information such as “survey type” and “number of surveys completed.”   

  • Probe: How can the form be improved to better tell survivor stories?

• If you had a magic wand, what changes would you make to the reporting form? 

  • Probe: What do you wish the reporting form asked you?

  • Probe: Are there any parts of the PPR that you find beneficial and believe should be further developed?

  • Probe: How can the form be organized to streamline the reporting process for you?

  • Probe: Are there any best practices or examples from other reporting forms that you recommend adding?

  • Probe: How can the PPR be modified to minimize the time and effort needed to complete it?

Wrap Up and Next Steps

• Before we wrap up, is there anything else I should have asked, or you’d like to share?

• We will now have a closing prayer by _________.

[Thank participants for their time. Explain the timeline for next steps (including providing asynchronous feedback) and remind them that their feedback will be synthesized and shared back with OFVPS to make recommendations to reporting form re-design. Stop recording if the session was recorded.]

Post Meeting and Internal Team Roles

Primary Facilitator: Leads the discussion during the listening sessions using the guide and incorporates probing questions as needed. Primary facilitator will secure access to a premium Zoom account (enables longer meetings, more participants, etc.).

Secondary Facilitator: Supports the primary facilitator by monitoring the chat. The secondary facilitator also serves as backup in the event the primary facilitator is unavailable or experiences technical difficulties. Secondary facilitator will secure access to a premium Zoom account (enables longer meetings, more participants, etc.).

Primary Notetaker: Captures relevant information and content during the listening session. Primary notetaker will also share their screen, record the session, and save chat history and transcript before closing out of Zoom. After the listening session, uploads the documents to MITRE SharePoint site and cleans up the notes ahead of high-level analysis. Uploads meeting notes to MITRE SharePoint site one to two days after the listening session with the naming convention “Listening Session X Notes_YYMMDD.”

Secondary Notetaker: Supports the primary notetaker by capturing relevant information and content during the listening sessions. Secondary notetaker also serves as backup in the event the primary notetaker is unavailable or experiences technical difficulties.

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