Supporting Statement A

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Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Performance Measures and Additional Data Collection – Extension of Approved Collection


OMB Information Collection Request
0970-0566


Supporting Statement
Part A

TBD

Type of Request: Revision


Submitted By:
Administration for Children and Families 
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

4th Floor, Mary E. Switzer Building
330 C Street, SW
Washington, D.C. 20201

Project Officers:
Rebecca Hjelm, Social Science Research Analyst, ACF
Harmanpreet Bhatti, Social Science Research Analyst, ACF



Part A

Executive Summary

    • Type of Request: This Information Collection Request (ICR) is for a revision to an approved collection that includes reporting of performance measures and other data collection activities. We are requesting 3 years of approval. 

    • Progress to Date: The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) requires that each cohort of Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) grant recipients collect data and report on a comprehensive set of performance measures as part of their grants.  Through September 29, 2025 (the end of the 2020 cohort), grant recipients completed enrollment for 193,993 clients. Ninety-two percent of these clients completed an entrance survey and 70 percent completed an exit survey using the OMB-approved instruments. Grant recipients also submitted performance reports to ACF using the approved templates. In addition, the data have been used to support federal and grant recipient-led evaluations of the HMRF programs.

    • Previous Terms of Clearance: No terms of clearance were provided previously. 

    • Summary of changes requested: ACF proposes to continue performance measure data collection and reporting for the 2025 cohort of HMRF grant recipients that received five-year awards in September 2025. For the 2025 cohort, ACF revised the instruments used by the 2020 cohort to reflect its current priorities, better align the data with the characteristics of HMRF programs and clients, and reduce respondent burden. We do not intend for this information to be used as the principal basis for public policy decisions.

    • Time Sensitivity/Timeline: The 2025 cohort is expected to begin using these instruments on July 1, 2026 for performance monitoring and program improvement. Approval is requested before then so that grant recipients can be trained on the new instruments and begin programming as scheduled. 

A1.	Necessity for Collection 
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) 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. 

ACF requires HMRF grant recipients to collect and report performance measures about program operations, services, and clients served, using a performance measures data collection system called nFORM (Information, Family Outcomes, Reporting, and Management). ACF provides this system 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 ACF’s Office of Grants Management (OGM) to submit a Performance Progress Report (PPR) once during each grant year (in October), reporting on the programmatic activities conducted by the grant recipient in the prior year and activities planned for the next year. The annual PPR (Instrument 5) fulfills 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 and renewed in 2024. The instruments have been used as planned. Through September 29, 2025 (the end of the 2020 cohort), grant recipients had enrolled 193,993 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. 

This request from ACF is for a revision to its approved collection and reporting of performance measures about program operations, services, and client services through the HMRF Grant Programs. ACF proposes to continue performance measure data collection and reporting for the 2025 cohort of HMRF grant recipients that received five-year awards in September 2025. For the 2025 cohort, ACF revised the instruments used by the 2020 cohort to reflect its current priorities, better align the data with the characteristics of HMRF programs and clients, and reduce respondent burden. 


A2.	Purpose
Purpose and Use 
The primary purpose of this information collection is to enable program performance monitoring and program improvement activities for the 2025 cohort of HMRF grant recipients. The performance measures data and annual reports in this request will be used by grant recipients, ACF, and ACF contractors for monitoring and program improvement. Program monitoring and improvement could include, for example, monitoring client enrollment in HMRF programs to determine whether recruitment strategies require adjustment to better reach the intended audiences. 
The information collected is also used to support ACF-funded activities including grant recipient-led descriptive and impact evaluations, cross-site analyses, and technical assistance to grant recipients for program implementation, evaluation, and data collection. ACF will disseminate reports and other products to the public that highlight grant recipients’ achievements, such as number of clients enrolled, characteristics of services, descriptions of who the grant recipients served, and client outcomes. Additional analyses may be conducted to better understand grant recipients’ progress across their period of performance and reflect ACF priorities for each grant year.
The information obtained through this data collection is critical to understanding the broad array of HM and RF programs funded—the services provided, the context in which they operate, the nature and extent of participation, and the outcomes of program clients. The goal is to better understand the design, operations, and benefits of HMRF programs, thereby informing decisions about future government investments in HMRF programming. 
The performance measures covered by this information collection request (ICR) are directly aligned with the legislatively authorized activities for the HM and RF programs. Authorized activities for the HM adult programs include marriage and relationship education/skills, pre-marital education, marriage enhancement, divorce reduction, marriage mentoring, reduction of disincentives to marriage, and public advertising campaigns. 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.
Each grant recipient collects performance information from clients in real time using the nFORM system, from enrollment through program completion, for both individual and group-based activities. Through the nFORM system, grant recipients have continuous, secure access to this performance data so they can target services for individual clients and to support the grant recipient’s monitoring and reporting efforts across clients. Grant recipients are able to view each client’s profile to help identify specific activities and make referrals based on client needs. Grant recipients are also able to extract performance information in real time to analyze the progress of individual clients and target follow-up, and to track progress across clients. 
ACF only has access to summary data at the grant recipient-level and does not have access to individual-level data. ACF reviews summary performance data by grant recipient and across grant recipients to track their progress in providing the legislatively mandated activities and to identify areas where grant recipients would benefit from technical assistance to help improve service delivery to clients and program outcomes. ACF can review grant recipient performance using the required annual reports as well as by generating summary measures in real time using nFORM’s grant recipient-level dashboard and other data tools. Using the reports and data tools, ACF can track when a grant recipient faces challenges and connect that grant recipient to individualized programmatic, data capacity, continuous quality improvement (CQI), or local evaluation technical assistance support. The reports and data tools also help ACF identify common trends and issues across grant recipients that can be addressed through universal technical assistance activities including webinars or written guidance.         
The information collected is meant to contribute to the body of knowledge on ACF programs. It is not intended to be used as the principal basis for a decision by a federal decision-maker, and is not expected to meet the threshold of influential or highly influential scientific information.  

Research Questions or Tests
Because this is a performance measures ICR, no research questions are listed. 

Study Design
This request is to extend approval to collect and report data with revised materials to facilitate the collection and reporting of high-quality and consistent performance measures data by the 2025 cohort of HMRF grant recipients. 

Specifically, ACF revised existing instruments used for the 2020 cohort, for program clients and grant recipient staff to complete (Instruments 1 through 4). In addition to revising Instruments 1 through 4, ACF has eliminated the applicant characteristics survey that clients in the 2020 cohort completed at enrollment and reduced the cadence of Instruments 2 and 5, completed by grant recipient staff, from quarterly and semi-annually, respectively, to annually. 

ACF also revised the annual reports that grant recipient staff submit to ACF (Instrument 5) after the fourth quarters of each grant year. ACF has eliminated the requirement to complete a quarterly report after the first, second, and third quarters of each grant year. The data collected with Instruments 1 through 4 are used by grant recipients to inform and prepare Instrument 5. 

ACF proposes to continue the OMB-approved requirement for grant recipients to document their CQI planning and implementation using a CQI plan template. This template was included in this information collection in the past, but for the 2025 cohort this template is now approved under OMB #0970-0531 (Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Data Capacity and Continuous Quality Improvement Plan Template).

To promote consistent, high quality, and secure data collection and reporting and to minimize burden on grant recipients and their clients, all the survey instruments and reports in Instruments 1 through 5 of this ICR are programmed into the web-based nFORM performance measures system described in A1. nFORM automatically generates quantitative sections of the required PPRs (Instrument 5) using the data collected in Instruments 1 through 4. Grant recipients then complete qualitative PPR sections in nFORM. ACF provides nFORM free of charge to all HMRF grant recipients. When internet access is not available, as in some rural areas or correctional facilities, the entry and exit surveys may be administered to clients on paper and data entered into nFORM by grant recipient staff. The web-based and paper entrance and exit surveys will be translated into Spanish. ACF acknowledges that English is the official language and authoritative version of all federal information and will note this on the translated instruments. 

The designated respondent for each instrument and report, its content, mode of administration, and duration are summarized in Table A.1.

Table A.1. Overview of information collection activities 
Data Collection Activity
Instruments
Respondent, Content, Purpose of Collection
Mode and Duration 
Performance Measurement
1a: Application Form
Respondent: Program staff
Content/Purpose: Program staff conduct intake before clients complete the entrance survey. 
Mode: nFORM
Duration: 0.10 hours
Performance Measurement
1b: Entrance Surveys 
4: Exit Surveys
Respondent: Program clients (entrance)
Content/Purpose: When they enroll in the program, clients provide information on their demographic characteristics, financial well-being, family status, how they heard about the program, and reasons for enrolling. They also record their experiences related to (1) parenting, co-parenting, and fatherhood; (2) economic stability; (3) healthy marriage and relationships; and (4) program perceptions. Separate instruments tailor content to the client population served by the program (HM adults, HM youth, RF fathers residing in the community, or RF reentering fathers).
Mode: nFORM
Duration: 0.34 hours


Respondent: Program clients (exit)
Content/Purpose: Same as above, with content tailored to measure client experiences upon program completion.
Mode: nFORM
Duration: 0.28 hours


Respondent: Program staff (entrance and exit on paper)
Content/Purpose: The same entrance and exit survey instruments described above are administered on paper when clients are not able to access nFORM. In addition to the burden for program clients, program staff incur burden for time required to data enter the completed paper surveys in nFORM. 
Mode: Paper
Duration: 0.10 hour
Performance Measurement
2: Program Operations Survey
Respondent: Program staff
Content/Purpose: Annually, program staff document strategies used to market to and recruit individuals and couples into their programs (such as the amount and types of mass marketing strategies; recruitment methods; and the number of full-time equivalent staff dedicated to marketing, outreach, and recruitment); practices to support and monitor quality (such as staff training, staff supervision, and program observations); and implementation challenges (such as staff turnover and recruitment challenges).
Mode: nFORM
Duration: 0.32 hours
Performance Measurement
3: Service Delivery Data
Respondent: Program staff
Content/Purpose: On an ongoing basis, grant recipient staff record program services offered and individuals’ and couples’ participation in these services.
Mode: nFORM
Duration: 0.36 hours
Required Reports
5: Annual Performance Progress Report (PPR)
Respondent: Program staff
Content/Purpose: Includes quantitative and qualitative information. Quantitative data include a subset of performance measures such as program applicants’ characteristics; program enrollment and participation; and program operations (staff training and supervision; marketing, outreach, and recruitment; and implementation challenges). Qualitative information includes narrative descriptions of grant recipient’s major activities and accomplishments; implementation challenges and steps taken; and program successes.
Mode: nFORM
Duration: 3 hours


Other Data Sources and Uses of Information
The information collection described above is the only source of performance measures data for the 2025 cohort of HMRF grants. This data may also be used to support separate descriptive or impact evaluations funded by ACF; however, those evaluations submit separate ICRs for approval. Grant recipients will complete the HMRF Data Capacity and CQI Plan Template (OMB #0970-0531) and the information may be used in conjunction with these performance measures.    

A3.	Use of Information Technology to Reduce Burden
As described in A2, ACF provides the web-based nFORM system to grant recipients free of charge for all performance measures data collection and reporting described in this ICR. nFORM has a user-friendly interface accessible to authorized users, allowing for ease of data entry without purchasing or installing additional software or changing the configuration of their computers. All data are housed on secure servers in a cloud-based environment, thereby maintaining data security in accordance with ACF requirements and nFORM’s Authority to Operate (ATO). Each grant recipient can collect, view, and report only data for its own program. 
Program clients use computers or tablets to self-administer the entrance and exit surveys in nFORM. This method presents several advantages over interviewer-administered surveys. It ensures greater privacy, and respondents will be less likely to give socially desirable responses, particularly with sensitive questions (Turner et al. 1998; Tourangeau and Smith 1996). It also reduces burden for grant recipient staff who would otherwise need to administer the surveys. To address possible literacy limitations, respondents have the option to wear headphones and listen to a recording of the questions, known as Audio Computer-Assisted Self-Interview (ACASI). 

A4.	Use of Existing Data: Efforts to reduce duplication, minimize burden, and increase utility and government efficiency
The performance measures in this ICR are revised versions of the measures that were successfully used for the 2015 cohort of HMRF grant recipients (OMB #0970-0460), the 2020 cohort (OMB #0970-0566), and in studies involving similar populations and programs. There are no other sources of information that would allow ACF to assess the performance of the 2025 cohort of HMRF grant recipients. No superfluous or unnecessary information is requested of grant recipient staff or clients, and none of the instruments ask for information that can be reliably obtained through other sources.

A5.	Impact on Small Businesses 
The potential exists for data collection activities to affect grant recipients that are small entities. Current data collection efforts are designed to minimize the burden on all organizations involved, including small businesses and entities, by collecting only critical information.

A6.	Consequences of Less Frequent Collection  
The purpose of each instrument in this ICR is described in Item A2, above. Not collecting information using these instruments would limit the government’s ability to document the performance of its grant recipients and to assess the extent to which these federal grants are successful in achieving their purpose. In addition, without collecting information on characteristics of clients at program entry and their outcomes at program exit (Instruments 1 and 4), program operations (Instrument 2), and service receipt (Instrument 3), HMRF grant recipients would not be able to report on the required performance measures (Instrument 5). 

If service receipt data were collected less frequently, providers would have to store service data or try to recall it weeks or months after delivery. Less frequent data collection would also reduce ACF’s ability to identify and address data quality issues, such as missing data and data entry errors, in a timely way. Finally, if client outcomes were not collected at both program entry and program exit, ACF would not be able to assess changes in outcomes pre- and post-program participation.

Furthermore, this information provides a valuable resource for ACF, practitioners, and researchers to gain empirical knowledge about the design and implementation of a broad range of HMRF programs and the characteristics of and outcomes for program clients.

A7.	Now subsumed under 2(b) above and 10 (below)

A8.	Consultation
Federal Register Notice and Comments
In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13) and 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 activity.  This notice was published on January 29, 2026 (91 FR 3892) and provided a sixty-day period for public comment.  ACF received five emails from grant recipients, interested organizations, and individuals during the 60-day comment period; most emails contained multiple comments.  There was some support expressed for the proposed measures and ACF’s intent to increase understanding of HMRF programs while reducing administrative burden. Comments were related to proposed survey measures, data collection and survey administration, and data quality. Appendix D provides a summary of the comments received during the 60-day period and ACF’s responses.   

Consultation with Experts Outside of the Study
The performance measures, data collection instruments, and data collection system were revised in 2025 based on a targeted analysis of existing measures, feedback from key audiences, and discussions with ACF staff and the 2020 cohort of grant recipients. 

A9.	Tokens of Appreciation
No tokens of appreciation are proposed for this information collection. 

A10.	Privacy:  Procedures to protect privacy of information, while maximizing data sharing
Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
Grant recipients will collect PII from clients including clients’ first and last names, contact information (telephone number, home and email addresses, and social media information), and personal characteristics. This information will be stored in nFORM so that grant recipients can conduct client case management and track services and outcomes for individual clients. Social security numbers will not be collected. ACF provides guidelines for grant recipients for protecting PII. Only nFORM contractor staff responsible for ensuring data quality have access to PII; limiting the number of contractor staff with access to PII reduces the risk of disclosure. 

Assurances of Privacy
Information collected will be kept private to the extent permitted by law. Respondents are informed of all planned uses of data, that their participation is voluntary, and that their information will be kept private to the extent permitted by law. As specified in its contract as well as in the ATO for the nFORM system, the contractor managing the nFORM system will comply with all Federal and Departmental regulations for private information.

At least some of the information collected under this ICR will likely be retrieved by an individual’s personal identifier in a way that triggers the Privacy Act of 1974, as amended (5 U.S.C. 552a). The system of records notice (SORN) for this collection is ACF Research and Evaluation Project Records, 09-80-0361. Each individual will be provided with information that complies with 552a(e)(3) prior to being asked for information that will be placed into that system of records. This means respondents will receive information about the authority, the purposes for use, the routine uses, that the request is voluntary, and any effects of not providing the requested information.  

Grant recipients are responsible for obtaining any necessary independent review board (IRB) approvals for their performance measures data collection, including the necessary consent procedures. If applicable, the IRBs are responsible for reviewing and approving the procedures that grant recipients have in place for protecting PII. Each grant recipient executed a data sharing and user agreement with the nFORM contractor to document data security and data sharing requirements in connection with the grant recipient’s use of nFORM. The nFORM contractor received an exemption from an IRB to use the performance measures data to generate descriptive analyses for ACF. The nFORM contractor has previously applied for a Certificate of Confidentiality for analysis of HMRF performance data and was advised by NIH that it was not applicable to the planned analyses for ACF.

Data Security and Monitoring
In all data collection and performance reporting efforts, ACF has taken the following specific measures to protect respondents’ privacy: 
    • Adopt strict security measures and web security best practices to protect data collected through nFORM. Data entered into nFORM are housed in a secure Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud-based environment that conforms to the requirements of the HHS Information Security Program Policy. nFORM employs strict security measures and web security best practices to securely and safely submit, store, maintain, and disseminate data. Strict security measures are employed to protect the privacy of client information stored in the system including data authentication, monitoring, auditing, and encryption. Specific security procedures include, but are not limited to:
    • nFORM received an ATO from HHS in 2021. The ATO was renewed during 2024 per the HHS security policy.
    • All data are encrypted in transit (using TLS protocol backward compatible to SSL).
    • Data are encrypted at rest and reside behind firewalls.
    • nFORM users can access the system only within the scope of their assigned roles and responsibilities:
    • Among contractor staff, only authorized users have access to the securely-held individual-level data. Other contractor staff have access only to auto-generated reports that provide aggregated information only. 
    • Only authorized staff at each grant recipient are able to view all individual-level data for their clients. Other staff have access to auto-generated reports that provide aggregated information only. 
    • Security procedures are integrated into the design, implementation, and day-to-day operations of nFORM, such as the use of multi-factor authentication (MFA).
    • To further ensure data security, contractor personnel must adhere to strict standards, receive periodic security training, and sign security agreements as a condition of employment. These agreements are pledges to protect the privacy of data and client identity and breaking that pledge is grounds for immediate dismissal and possible legal action.
    • The nFORM system has developed and implemented standard procedures for assigning identification numbers to all client-level data. Case- and individual-level numbers are content-free. For example, they do not include special codes to indicate enrollment dates, participant location, gender, age, or other characteristics. Data extracts from nFORM, which may not be secured, include IDs and not PII.   

A11.	Sensitive Information 1
Some of the items that grant recipients are required to collect may be considered sensitive questions. Based on feedback from ACF and grant recipients, sensitive questions on attitudes about sex, infidelity, psychological distress, harsh discipline, and income that were listed in the original and renewal ICRs have been removed for the 2025 cohort. However, some sensitive questions are necessary to assess performance of HMRF programs that are designed to affect personal relationships and employment. Table A.2 below lists these topics and the justifications for including them. Questions on the client’s religious engagement and their religious engagement with their child have been added for the 2025 cohort. As noted above, respondents will be informed of all planned uses of data, that their participation is voluntary, and that their information will be kept private to the extent permitted by law. Respondents can skip any surveys or survey items they do not want to answer. 

Table A.2. Sensitive Topics and Justification for Inclusion
Sensitive topic
Relevant instruments
Justification
Receipt of economic assistance from the government
Instruments 1bHM-Adult, 1bHM-Youth, 1bRF-Community Fathers, 1bRF-Reentering Fathers (entrance surveys for all four populations)
A key goal of RF and some HM programs is to improve participants’ economic stability. The outcomes of an individual who receives government assistance when he/she enters the program may be very different than those of an individual who enters without this assistance. The entrance surveys ask whether the respondent or anyone in their household has received any of several types of assistance in the past month, including Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Supplemental Security Income, or Social Security Disability Insurance. This question was adapted from the Supporting Healthy Marriages, 30-Month Adult Survey (Lowenstein et al. 2014). 
Engagement in religious activities
Instruments 1b and 4 (entrance and exit surveys for all HM and RF populations)
To better understand clients’ backgrounds and activities, clients in HM and RF programs will be asked how often they attend religious services. This question is adapted from a measure used in the Parents and Children Together evaluation of fathers who participated in the 2010 cohort of RF programs (for more information, see https://acf.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/pact_impacts_tech_rh_april_2020.pdf).
Engagement in religious activities with child
Instruments 1bHM-Adult and 4HM-Adult (entrance and exit surveys for adult populations); Instruments 1bRF-Community Fathers and 4RF-Community Fathers (entrance and exit surveys for community fathers populations)
To capture a comprehensive picture of parental engagement with a child over 12 years old, parents in HM and RF programs will be asked how often in the past month they attended religious services with their child, and how often they participated in other religious activities with their child, such as praying together or reading religious stories. These questions will be asked at program entrance and exit to help measure change over time. ACF developed these questions for the 2025 HMRF cohort, after a review of existing measures of participation in religious activities, to complement existing questions about parental engagement. Similar questions about parenting have been asked in other surveys, such as the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort and a Pew Survey on the religious landscape.   

A12.	Burden
Explanation of Burden Estimates
The specifications for developing the burden hour estimates for this ICR for revision of clearance, including assumptions regarding the number of respondents and periodicity of data collection, are described in Appendix B. Table A.3 summarizes the annual burden hour estimates for each data collection and reporting instrument.

Estimated Annualized Cost to Respondents
Appendix B also provides specifications for the annual cost estimates associated with each of these instruments. For all cost calculations, average hourly wage estimates have been based on either the federal minimum wage or applicable wage rates from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment Statistics (OES), 2024. 

Table A.3. Estimates of hourly burden and costs

Instrument
Respondent
No. of Respondents (total over request period)
No. of Responses per Respondent (total over request period)
Avg. Burden per Response (in hours)



Total burden (in hours)
Annual Burden (in hours)
Average Hourly Wage Rate
Total Annual Respondent Cost
1: Program Application and Enrollment
Program staff
(1a: application form)
327
413
0.10
13,505
4,502
$71.82
$323,333.64

Program staff
(1b: entrance survey data entry)
218
124
0.10
2,703
901
$40.44
$36,436.44

Program applicants
(1b: entrance survey)
135,000
1
0.34
45,900
15,300
$7.25
$110,925
2:  Program Operations
Program staff
109
3
0.32
105
35
$82.78
$2,897.30
3:  Service Delivery Data
Program staff (data entry)
1,635
78
0.36
45,911
15,304
$40.44
$618,893.76
4: Exit Surveys
Participants 
87,561
1
0.28
24,516
8,172
$7.25
$59,247

Program staff
(exit survey data entry)
218
80
0.10
1,744
581
$40.44
$23,495.64
5:  Annual Performance Progress Report (PPR)
Program staff
109
3
3
981
327
$82.78
$27,069.06
Total





45,122

$1,202,297.84

A13.	Costs
There are no additional costs to respondents.

A14.	Estimated Annualized Costs to the Federal Government 
Annualized costs to the federal government are estimated based on the contracted costs for tasks associated with this work. Contracted costs are based on approved hours and labor rates by task, as well as other direct costs including system licenses and hosting fees for nFORM, the management information system used by grant recipients for data collection and reporting.   


Table A.4. Estimated annualized costs 
Cost Category
Estimated Costs
nFORM system
$1,583,687
Grant recipient training and technical assistance
$776,844
Analysis
$335,256
Publications/Dissemination
$147,837
Annual costs 
$2,843,624

A15.	Reasons for changes in burden 
The overall reduction in burden from the 2024 renewal of the original OMB approval reflects the removal of the applicant characteristics survey, quarterly performance reports, and CQI planning instruments, and reduced frequency of Instruments 2 and 5 in Table A.3. The reduction in burden per response for Instruments 1b, 3, and 4 reflects a systematic assessment of the survey and services measures and removal of questions that were not frequently analyzed or aligned with ACF’s goals for the 2025 cohort. The change in burden also reflects the number of grant recipients and participants that ACF expects for the 2025 cohort. 

A16.	Timeline
Grant recipients will collect performance measure data from clients on an ongoing basis and submit annual performance reports beginning in Spring 2026, after OMB approval is received. Cross-grant recipient data will be analyzed and disseminated in a variety of formats, as requested by ACF, beginning in Spring/Summer 2026. These activities will continue until the end of the award period. A restricted use file with de-identified data will be prepared in 2030.  

Table A.5. Data collection and reporting schedule 
Instrument/report
Timeline
1a:  Application Form
1b: Entrance Surveys 
Summer 2026 – Fall 2030
2:  Program Operations Survey
Summer 2026 – Fall 2030
3:  Service Delivery Data
Summer 2026 – Fall 2030
4:  Exit Surveys
Summer 2026 – Fall 2030
5:  Annual Performance Progress Report (PPR)
Fall 2026 – Fall 2030
Annual reports
2026 -- 2030
Briefs, presentations, and other public reports as specified by ACF
Ongoing, 2026 – 2030
Restricted use file
2030


A17.	Exceptions
No exceptions are necessary for this information collection.
	

Attachments
APPENDIX A: 		Legislative Authority 
APPENDIX B:		Assumptions for Calculations of Burden Estimates 
APPENDIX C:		Justification for Collection of Race/Ethnicity Data
APPENDIX D:		Response to Public Comments on Federal Register Notice
Instrument 1a: 		Application Form
Instrument 1b:		Entrance Surveys
Instrument 2: 		Program Operations Survey
Instrument 3: 		Service Delivery Data - nFORM Service Receipt
Instrument 4: 		Exit Surveys 
Instrument 5: 		Annual Performance Progress Report (PPR)