ombrocisFINALdisabilitiessupportstatement3 doc__edits

Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission

Semi-annual Progress Report for the Education and Technical Assistance Grants to End Violence Against Women with Disabilities Program (Disability Grant Program)

A. Justification

1. Statutorily-Mandated Need for Information

The Violence Against Women Act of 2000 (VAWA 2000) authorized the Attorney General to award grants to provide funds for education and technical assistance in the form of training, consultations, and information to organizations and programs that provide services to individuals with disabilities and to domestic violence programs providing shelter or related assistance.

Currently, there are different statutory and regulatory reporting requirements that affect the Disability Grant Program grantees. First, VAWA 2000 requires all VAWA grantees, including Disability Grant Program grantees, to report on the effectiveness of their programs to the Attorney General who, in turn, must report to Congress every two years. Section 1003 of VAWA 2000 states that:

(a) REPORT BY GRANT RECIPIENTS.- The Attorney General or Secretary of Health and Human Services, as applicable, shall require grantees under any program authorized or reauthorized by this division or an amendment made by this division to report on the effectiveness of the activities carried out with amounts made available to carry out that program, including number of persons served, if applicable, numbers of persons seeking services who could not be served and such other information as the Attorney General or Secretary may prescribe.

(b) REPORT TO CONGRESS.- The Attorney General or Secretary of Health and Human Services, as applicable, shall report biennially to the Committees on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and the Senate on the grant programs described in subsection (a), including the information contained in any report under that subsection.

42 U.S.C. ' 3789.

OVW must also comply with the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) (Pub. L. 103-62) which was enacted to increase Congressional and Administrative focus on the results from government programs and activities. Information collected on the semi-annual progress report regarding performance measures, including output measures, that OVW has developed for the different types of Disability Grant Program grantees will enable OVW to meet its reporting obligations under GPRA.

2. Use of Information

OVW uses data from the information collection¹ in different ways. OVW uses the information collected from Disability Grant Program grantees to monitor their grant-funded activities and qualitatively assess those activities. The Disability Grant Program grantees collect information that addresses the following grant-funded activities (different sections on the reporting form): planning and development, staff, statutory purpose areas, training, community coordinated responses, education, policies, technical assistance, product development, and victim services. Narrative questions at the end of these different sections enable grantees to give more detailed qualitative information about their grant-funded activities. In addition, Disability Grant Program grantees must answer narrative questions on the status of the grant goals and objectives, the most significant areas of remaining need with regard to obstacles faced by individuals with disabilities and what Disability Grant Program funding has allowed the grantee to do that it could not do prior to receiving the funding. There are also optional narrative questions addressing additional information on the Disability Grant Program grant and that ask grantees to provide qualitative information regarding the effectiveness of the grant.

In addition to the proposed information collection, OVW will continue to use a number of other techniques to assess the performance of Disability Grant Program grantees. These may include OVW staff attendance at site visits, grant-funded training and technical assistance events, staff review of products prior to dissemination, and ongoing consultation with OVW staff.

OVW will aggregate data from all Disability Grant Program grantees’ progress reports to assess the performance of the Disability Grant Program as a whole and to respond to Congressional, Department of Justice, and other inquiries about how Disability Grant Program funds are being used. In addition, information collected from Disability Grant Program grantees will support the following OVW GPRA measures:

Number of victims receiving requested services;

Percentage of victims requesting services who received them;

Number of protection orders issued;

Number of policies developed/revised;

Number of communities with improved CCR;

Number of victims requesting services who received them;

The number of grant funded multi-disciplinary training events that have occurred; and

Number of professionals trained to respond to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking

Information collected from Disability Grant Program grantees will enable OVW to respond to statutory requirements to report on the effectiveness of grant-funded activities. The structure of the Congressional report on the OVW grant programs (cited in the previous section) includes sections that describe all OVW grant programs, the Measuring Effectiveness Initiative, the effectiveness of different interventions that are funded by OVW grant programs, and specific topics of interest. The Report also contains specific chapters with more detailed information on each OVW grant program. Much of the data collected helps OVW monitor the grants to ensure that Disability Grant Program funds are being used for the purposes authorized by law and provides important information about the quantity of authorized activities (e.g., number of trainings, number of victims served, etc.) supported by the funds. OVW primarily relies on two sources of information to make sure that our grantees are effective. First, OVW collects data from grantees about what they do with VAWA funding; second, to support our assessment, the body of existing research evaluating responses to violence against women is examined. Further discussion about research that has found that the types of interventions supported by Disability Grant Program funds are effective is contained in the 2010 Biennial Report to Congress on the Effectiveness of Grant Programs Under the Violence Against Women Act (http://www.ovw.usdoj.gov/docs/2010-biennial-report-to-congress.pdf). For example, Disability Grant Program funds support the development of a community coordinated response and research has shown that efforts to respond to violence against women are most effective when combined and integrated as part of a coordinated community response (Pence, E., & Shepard, M. (Eds.). (1999). An introduction: Developing a coordinated community response. Coordinating community responses to domestic violence: Lessons from Duluth and beyond, Sage Series on Violence Against Women (pp. 3-23). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications; Shepard, M. (1999). Evaluating coordinated community responses to domestic violence. Harrisburg, PA: VAWnet, a project of the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence/Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Retrieved from http://new.vawnet.org/Assoc_Files_VAWnet/AR_ccr.pdf)².

The data that OVW collects on the semiannual progress reporting forms is currently not used in connection with an evaluation of the Disability Grant Program. OVW is currently exploring the development of a multi-layered evaluation agenda for its grant programs.

3. Use of Information Technology

The collection of information will involve the use of automated, electronic, mechanical or other technological collection techniques or other forms of information technology. OVW grantees are required to submit semi-annual or annual progress reports through the Grants Management System (GMS).

3. Duplication of Information Request

There is no other mechanism by which OVW collects information about grant funded activities number of victims served, victims seeking services who could not be served or persons trained.

3. Impact on Small Entities

There is no impact on small entities as the collection of this type of information is routinely kept by most grantees receiving funds under the Disability Grant Program

3. Consequences to Federal Programs or Policy

Through the VAWA 2000, Congress has mandated that Disability Grant Program grantees report to the Attorney General on the effectiveness of their activities funded under VAWA. If OVW was not able to collect the information necessary to complete these reports on behalf of the Attorney General, not only would it be failing to meet a statutorily required reporting mandate, but also the existence of this important and necessary grant program could be jeopardized. The Disability Grant Program supports important programs that provide critical training to address violence against individuals who are individuals with disabilities and provide valuable support to coordinated community responses to such crimes.

3. Special Circumstances

There are no special circumstances as identified in the specific instructions for a supporting statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions.

3. Federal Register Publication

OVW has consulted with persons outside the agency who have advised that the data proposed to be collected is available, the annual collection of such data is not burdensome, the form is clear, and that the information is routinely kept by most grantees receiving funds under the Disability Grant Program. OVW has solicited public comment on this form in accordance with the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act. A 60 day notice was published in the Federal Register on March 19, 2012 (Federal Register, Volume 77, page 16065) and a 30-day was notice was published in the Federal Register on May 22, 2012 (Federal Register, Volume 77, page 30322).

3. Payment or Gift to Respondents

There will no payment or gift to respondents.

3. Confidentiality

Although this information is needed for a public report to Congress, it will not involve any personal information about victims that could identify them as specific individuals. However, anecdotal, non-identifying information about the effectiveness of individual programs may be included in the report. There is no assurance to confidentiality.

3. Specific Questions

The semi-annual progress report will not contain any questions of a personal, sensitive nature such as sexual behavior and attitudes, religious beliefs, and other matters that are commonly considered private.

3. Hour Burden of the Collection of Information

This semi-annual progress report is not overly burdensome. The data collection tool will be completed by approximately 18 Disability Grant Program grantees twice a year as there are 2 reporting periods- January 1 through June 30 and July 1 through December 31. There will be 36 annual responses and it is estimated that it will take grantees no more than 1 hour to complete the semi-annual progress report form. Thus, the annual reporting and recordkeeping hour burden is 36. Disability Grant Program grantees are informed about the reporting requirements during the grant solicitation process and during the grant award process. Because the semi-annual progress report covers a six month period, grantees are not in a position to complete the form until the end of each reporting period.

13. Cost Burden of the Collection of Information

OVW does not believe that there is any annual cost burden on respondents or recordkeepers resulting from the collection of this information.

14. Annualized Costs to the Federal Government

The annualized costs to the Federal Government resulting from the OVW staff review of the progress reports submitted by grantees are estimated to be $2,016.

14. Program Changes or Adjustments

There are no program changes or adjustments for the estimates identified in Section 13 and in Section 14. This is a information collection that is necessary for OVW and its Disability Grant Program grantees to comply with the statutory reporting requirements of 42 U.S.C. 3789 and the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (Pub. L. 103-62).

14. Published Results of Information Collections

There will be no complex analytical techniques used in connection with the publication of

information collected under the request. Information will be gathered twice a year at the end of the reporting periods, January 1 through June 30 and July 1 through December 31. OVW is statutorily required to submit a report on the effectiveness of grant-funded activities on an annual basis.

14. Display of the Expiration Date of OMB Approval

OVW will display the Expiration Date of OMB Approval in the upper right hand corner of the Semi-annual Progress Report.

18. Exception to the Certification Statement

OVW is not seeking any exception to the certification statement identified in Item 19, Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions, of OMB Form 83-I.

1 Under a cooperative agreement between OVW and the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service, data collected from OVW grantees on all of OVW’s progress report forms is transmitted to the Muskie School for analysis. For the analysis of the data, standard descriptive statistics (frequency, sum, percentage, mean, etc.) are used to describe the characteristics of the grantees and report basic findings. All analyses are conducted in SPSS 13.0.

2 See also An evaluation of the Illinois statewide network of family violence coordinating councils, one of the major mechanisms for coordinating interagency intervention to address domestic violence, found that these councils facilitated stronger relationships and enhanced knowledge among stakeholders. This evaluation also found a positive relationship between the councils’ formation and development and the rate of emergency protection orders that became plenary orders (Allen, N. E., Javdani, S., Anderson, C. J., Rana, S., Newman, D., Todd, N., Lehrner, A., et al. (2010). Coordinating the criminal justice response to intimate partner violence: The effectiveness of councils in producing systems change ( No. NCJRS 229248). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.).

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