[Federal Register Volume 82, Number 82 (Monday, May 1, 2017)]
[Notices]
[Pages 20345-20346]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2017-08740]
[[Page 20345]]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Administration for Children and Families
Proposed Information Collection Activity; Comment Request
Proposed Projects
Title: Procedural Justice Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC).
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 Procedural Justice Informed
Alternatives to Contempt Demonstration (PJAC). In September 2016, OCSE
issued grants to six child support agencies to provide alternative
approaches to the contempt process with the goal of increasing parents'
compliance with child support orders by building trust and confidence
in the child support agency and its processes. PJAC is a five-year
project (the first year of which is dedicated to planning) that will
allow grantees to learn whether incorporating principles of procedural
justice into child support business practices increases reliable child
support payments. In addition to increasing reliable payments, the PJAC
intervention aims to reduce arrears, minimize the need for continued
enforcement actions and sanctions, and reduce the inefficient use of
contempt proceedings.
The PJAC evaluation will yield information about the efficacy of
applying procedural justice principles via a set of alternative
services to the current contempt process. It will generate extensive
knowledge regarding how PJAC programs operate, the effects the programs
have, and whether their benefits exceed their costs. The information
gathered will be critical to informing future policy decisions related
to contempt.
The PJAC evaluation will include the following three interconnected
components or ``studies'':
1. Implementation Study. The goal of the implementation study is to
provide a detailed description of the PJAC programs--how they are
implemented, their participants, the contexts in which they are
operated, and their promising practices. The implementation study will
also assess whether the PJAC interventions are implemented as intended
(implementation fidelity) as well as how the treatment implemented
differed from the status quo (treatment contrast). The detailed
descriptions will assist in interpreting program impacts and
identifying program features and conditions necessary for effective
program replication or improvement. Key activities of the
implementation study will include: (1) A Management Information System
(MIS) for collection and analysis of program participation data to
track participant engagement in PJAC activities; (2) semi-structured
interviews with program staff and staff from selected community partner
organizations; (3) semi-structured interviews with program participants
to learn about their experiences in PJAC; and (4) a staff questionnaire
to gather broader quantitative information on program implementation
and staff experiences.
2. Impact Study: The goal of the impact study is to provide
rigorous estimates of the effectiveness of the six programs using an
experimental research design. Program applicants who are eligible for
PJAC services will be randomly assigned to either a program group that
is offered program services or to a control group that is not offered
those services. The random assignment process will require child
support program staff to complete a brief data entry protocol. The
impact study will rely on administrative data from state and county
child support systems, court records, criminal justice records, and
data from the National Directory of New Hires. Administrative records
data will be used to estimate impacts on child support payments,
enforcement actions, contempt proceedings, jail stays, and employment
and earnings. The impact study will also include a follow-up survey of
participants that will be administered approximately 12 months after
random assignment to a subset of the sample. The survey will gather
information on participant experiences with the child support program
and family court, family relationships, parenting and co-parenting,
informal child support payments, and job characteristics. In an effort
to enhance response rates, the PJAC survey firm will attempt to track
survey sample members at a few points over the 12-month follow-up
period in order to stay in touch with them and gather updated contact
information from them.
3. Benefit-Cost Study: The benefit-cost study will estimate the
costs and benefits associated with the implementation and impact of the
PJAC interventions. The study will examine the costs and benefits from
the perspective of the government, noncustodial parents, custodial
parents and their children, and society. Once measured, particular
impacts or expenditures will constitute benefits or costs, depending on
which analytical perspective is considered. For each of the
perspectives, pertinent benefits and costs will be added together to
determine the net value of the program. Key hypothesized benefits and
costs to be assessed include increased PJAC intervention costs, reduced
costs for contempt actions, increased payments from non-custodial
parents, reduced court costs, and reduced jail time, among others. The
benefit-cost study will rely on the results of the impact study,
analysis of participation data from the MIS, and results of a staff
time study in order to quantify various PJAC-related costs and
benefits.
This 60-Day Notice covers the following data collection activities:
(1) Staff data entry for random assignment; (2) Study MIS to track
program participation; (3) Staff and community partner interview topic
guide; (4) Participant interview topic guide; and (5) Participant
survey tracking letter.
Respondents
Respondents for the first information collection phase include
study participants and grantee staff and community partners. Specific
respondents per instrument are noted in the burden table below.
Annual Burden Estimates
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Number of Average
Instrument Number of responses per burden hours Total burden Total annual
respondents respondent per response hours burden hours
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Staff data entry for random 120 150 0.05 900 300
assignment....................
[[Page 20346]]
Study MIS to track program 120 150 1.00 18,000 6,000
participation.................
Staff and community partner 150 2 1.00 300 100
interview topic guide.........
Participant interview topic 180 1 1.00 180 60
guide.........................
Participant survey tracking 3,000 3 0.10 900 300
letter........................
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Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 6,760.
In compliance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act
of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13, 44 U.S.C. Chap 35), 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, 330 C Street SW.,
Washington DC 20201. 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 the 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. 2017-08740 Filed 4-28-17; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4184-41-P