[Federal Register Volume 78, Number 8 (Friday, January 11, 2013)]
[Notices]
[Pages 2409-2411]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2013-00416]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Administration for Children and Families
Proposed Information Collection Activity; Comment Request
Proposed Projects:
Title: Child Support Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration
(CSPED).
OMB No.: 0970-NEW.
Description:
The Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) within the
Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is proposing data
collection activity as part of the Child Support Noncustodial Parent
Employment Demonstration (CSPED). In October 2012, OCSE issued grants
to eight state child support agencies to provide employment, parenting,
and child support services to non-custodial parents who are having
difficulty meeting their child support obligation. The overall
objective of the CSPED evaluation is to document and evaluate the
effectiveness of the approaches taken by these eight CSPED grantees.
This evaluation will yield information about effective strategies for
improving child support payments by providing non-custodial parents
employment and other services through child support programs. It will
generate extensive information on how these programs operated, what
they cost, the effects the programs had, and whether the benefits of
the programs exceed their costs. The information gathered will be
critical to informing decisions related to future investments in child
support-led employment-focused programs for non-custodial parents who
have difficulty meeting their child support obligations.
The CSPED evaluation will include the following two interconnected
components or ``studies'':
1. Implementation and Cost Study. The goal of the implementation
and cost
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study is to provide a detailed description of the programs--how they
are implemented, their participants, the contexts in which they are
operated, their promising practices, and their costs. The detailed
descriptions will assist in interpreting program impacts, identifying
program features and conditions necessary for effective program
replication or improvement, and carefully documenting the costs of
delivering these services. Key activities of the implementation and
cost study will include: (1) Conducting semi-structured interviews with
program staff and selected community partner organizations to gather
information on program implementation and costs; (2) conducting focus
groups with program participants to elicit participation experiences;
(3) administering a web-based survey to program staff and community
partners to capture broader staff program experiences; and (4)
collecting data on study participant service use, dosage, and duration
of enrollment throughout the demonstration using a web-based Management
Information System (MIS).
2. Impact Study. The goal of the impact study is to provide
rigorous estimates of the effectiveness of the eight programs using an
experimental research design. Program applicants who are eligible for
CSPED services will be randomly assigned to either a program group that
is offered program services or a control group that is not. The study
MIS that will document service use for the implementation study will
also be used by grantee staff to conduct random assignment for the
impact study. The impact study will rely on data from surveys of
participants, as well as administrative records from state and county
data systems. Survey data will be collected twice from program
applicants. Baseline information will be collected from all
noncustodial parents who apply for the program prior to random
assignment. A follow-up survey will be collected from sample members
twelve months after random assignment. A wide range of measures will be
collected through surveys, including measures of employment stability
and quality, barriers to employment, parenting and co-parenting, and
demographic and socio-economic characteristics. In addition, data on
child support obligations and payments, Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families (TANF) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)
benefits, Medicaid receipt, involvement with the criminal justice
system, and earnings and benefit data collected through the
Unemployment Insurance (UI) system will be obtained from state and
county databases.
This 60-Day Notice covers the following data collection activities:
(1) Guides for the semi-structured interviews with program staff and
community partners, (2) focus group guides for program participants,
(3) the web-based survey to document program staff and partner
experiences, (4) the MIS functions for tracking participation in the
program, (5) the introductory script which program staff will use to
introduce the study to participants, (6) the baseline survey used to
capture participant characteristics prior to randomization, (7) the MIS
functions for conducting random assignment, and (8) the extraction of
child support, benefit, earnings, and criminal justice data extracted
from state and county administrative data systems.
Respondents:
Respondents include program applicants, study participants, grantee
staff and community partners, as well as state and county staff
responsible for extracting data from government databases for the
evaluation. Specific respondents per instrument are noted in the burden
tables below.
Annual Burden Estimates
The following instruments, part of the baseline data collection and
site Management Information Systems (MIS), are proposed for public
comment under this 60-Day Federal Register Notice.
Implementation and Cost Study
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of Average burden
Instrument Number of responses per hours per Total burden Total annual
respondents respondent response hours burden hours
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Semi-structured interview topic 120 2 1 240 80
guide with program staff and
community partners............
Focus group guide with program 240 1 1.5 360 120
participants..................
Web survey of program staff and 200 2 0.5 200 66.7
community partners............
Study MIS for grantee and 200 1,500 0.0333 10,000 3,333.3
partner staff to document
program participation.........
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Impact Study
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Number of Average burden
Instrument Number of responses per hours per Total burden Total annual
respondents respondent response hours burden hours
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introductory script:
Grantee staff.............. 120 105 0.1667 2,100 700
Program applicants \1\..... 12,600 1 0.1667 2,100 700
Baseline survey:
Study participants......... 12,000 1 0.5833 7,000 2333.3
Study MIS for grantee staff 120 105 0.1667 2,100 700
to conduct random
assignment................
State and county 32 2 8 512 170.7
administrative records....
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\1\ Five percent of program applicants are not expected to agree to participate in the study; thus there are 5%
more program applicants than study participants.
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Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 8,204.
In compliance with the requirements of Section 506(c)(2)(A) of the
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Administration for Children and
Families is soliciting public comment on the specific aspects of the
information collection described above. Copies of the proposed
collection of information can be obtained and comments may be forwarded
by writing to the Administration for Children and Families, Office of
Planning, Research and Evaluation, 370 L'Enfant Promenade SW.,
Washington, DC 20447, Attn: ACF Reports Clearance Officer. Email
address: [email protected]. All requests should be identified
by the title of the information collection.
The Department specifically requests comments on: (a) Whether the
proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper
performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the
information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the
agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of
information; (c) the quality, utility, and clarity of the information
to be collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection
of information on respondents, including through the use of automated
collection techniques or other forms of information technology.
Consideration will be given to comments and suggestions submitted
within 60 days of this publication.
Robert Sargis,
Reports Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 2013-00416 Filed 1-10-13; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4184-01-P