Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Performance Measures and Additional Data Collection
No material or nonsubstantive change to a currently approved collection
No
Regular
Approved without change
04/04/2025
03/28/2025
table that charts list comparision
Inventory as of this Action
Requested
Previously Approved
03/31/2027
03/31/2027
03/31/2027
251,536
0
251,536
78,263
0
78,263
0
0
0
For decades, various organizations and agencies (including community- and faith-based organizations, local governments, and universities) have been developing and operating programs to strengthen families through healthy marriage and relationship education and responsible fatherhood programming. The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Family Assistance (OFA), has had administrative responsibility for federal funding of such programs since 2006 through the Healthy Marriage (HM) and Responsible Fatherhood (RF) Grant Programs. The authorizing legislation for the programs may be found in Section 403(a)(2) of the Social Security Act. Grant recipients receiving funding for HM programs offer services designed to promote healthy marriage and relationships. Legislatively authorized activities for adults include public advertising campaigns, marriage and relationship education/skills, pre-marital education, marriage enhancement, divorce reduction, marriage mentoring, and reduction of disincentives to marriage. Legislatively authorized activities for youth include education in high schools, marriage and relationship education/skills, and public advertising campaigns. RF grant recipients must provide legislatively authorized activities in three areas: economic stability, responsible parenting, and healthy marriage.
ACF requires HMRF grant recipients to collect and report performance measures about program operations, services, and clients served. ACF provides a performance measures data collection system called nFORM (Information, Family Outcomes, Reporting, and Management) to grant recipients to improve the efficiency of data collection and reporting and the quality of data. This system allows for streamlined and standardized submission of grant recipient performance data through regular progress reports, and it also supports grant recipient-led and federal research projects.
Grant recipients are required by ACFâs Office of Grants Management (OGM) to submit a Performance Progress Report (PPR) twice during each grant year (in October and April), reporting on the programmatic activities conducted by the grant recipient in the prior six months and activities planned for the next six months. The semi-annual PPR (Instrument 5) and the quarterly performance report templates (QPR, Instrument 6) fulfill these requirements for the HMRF grant recipients.
The performance measures data collection and reporting instruments for the 2020 cohort were approved by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB #0970-0566) in 2021. The instruments have been used as planned. Through September 29, 2023 (the end of grant year 3), grant recipients in the 2020 cohort had enrolled 103,444 clients, administered the OMB-approved survey instruments, and submitted the OMB-approved reports to ACF to meet reporting requirements. In addition, the data have been used to support numerous federal and grant recipient-led evaluations of the HMRF programs.
The following ICR has been updated with non substantive changes in response to the Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government Executive Order (Defending Women EO) and recent Presidential Actions related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), such as those covered under the EO Initial Recissions of Harmful Executive Orders and Actions.
US Code:
42 USC 603
Name of Law: Sec. 403; Social Security Act
On behalf of this Federal agency, I certify that the collection of information encompassed by this request complies with 5 CFR 1320.9 and the related provisions of 5 CFR 1320.8(b)(3).
The following is a summary of the topics, regarding the proposed collection of information, that the certification covers:
(i) Why the information is being collected;
(ii) Use of information;
(iii) Burden estimate;
(iv) Nature of response (voluntary, required for a benefit, or mandatory);
(v) Nature and extent of confidentiality; and
(vi) Need to display currently valid OMB control number;
If you are unable to certify compliance with any of these provisions, identify the item by leaving the box unchecked and explain the reason in the Supporting Statement.