SOP Data Collection Project -- SSA Template revised-clean

Street Outreach Program Data Collection Project
OMB Information Collection Request- Formative Generic
Clearance
0970 - 0356

Supporting Statement
Part A
August 2012

Submitted By:
Caryn Blitz, Ph.D.
Office of the Commissioner
Administration on Children, Youth and Families
Administration for Children and Families
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
1250 Maryland Avenue, SW, 8th Floor
Washington, DC 20024

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A1. Necessity for the Data Collection
Currently, the only data reported to the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) from
their Street Outreach Program (SOP) grantees consist of four data elements reported through
FYSB‟s Runaway and Homeless Youth Management Information System: 1) number of
contacts made by SOP staff with youth either on the street or in drop-in centers; 2) number of
youth contacts that were sheltered at least one night; 3) total number of materials distributed
by staff to youth on the street – written materials, health and hygiene products, and food and
drink items; and 4) basic demographic information. Further information is needed to
document current service utilization and service utilization needs, as well as the issues and
issues and problems experienced by homeless street youth at each of 11 SOP grantee sites
that will be involved in this data collection.
A2. Purpose of Survey and Data Collection Procedures
A2.1 Purpose
The purpose of the Street Outreach Program (SOP) Data Collection Project is to obtain
information on service utilization and needs from a subset of homeless street youth being
served by FYSB‟s SOP grantees. The goal is to learn about street youths‟ needs from their
perspective, to better understand which services youth find helpful/not helpful, and/or
alternative services they feel could be useful to them. The information collected will be used
for internal purposes only and will not be released to the public
A2.2 Data Collection Procedures
A2.2a Description of Respondents
The respondents that will provide feedback will be street youth served by FYSB‟s SOP
grantees as well as street youth who do not currently utilize services from SOP grantees in
each city. The eleven cities include: Austin, TX; Boston, MA; Chicago, IL; Washington,
DC; Minneapolis, MN; New York City, NY; Omaha, NE; Port St. Lucie, FL; San Diego,
CA; Seattle, WA; and Tucson, AZ. The youth served by these programs are between 14-21
years of age and are homeless. These homeless youth may use SOP drop-in centers to take a
shower, eat a hot meal or obtain food coupons, received hygiene kits, and/or obtain referrals
for medical, dental, mental health or social services. The youth who do not use SOP services
are included as respondents to try and identify whether they have needs that the SOP grantees
are not currently able to meet. This information will help SOP grantees to improve their
services and better meet the needs of all homeless street youth in their city.
A2.2b Sampling Design and Recruitment
Data will be collected via focus groups and computer-assisted personal interviews. All data
will be collected in person.
Personal Interview: An unbiased method for sampling the homeless has not been identified.
Many studies have clearly documented the difficulty associated with any attempt to
enumerate homeless populations (e.g., Bur & Taeuber, 1991; Dennis, 1991; Rossi, Wright,
Fisher, & Willis, 1987; Wright & Devine, 1992). A promising method, the Respondent
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Driven Sampling (RDS) approach (Heckathorn, 2002; Heckathorn et al., 2002) has been used
with adult and youth homeless populations (Coryn et al, 2007; Gwadz et al., 2010) and with
small native communities in the Arctic (Dombrowski et al., in press).
Local research staff will recruit initial “seed” respondents by word of mouth and by handing
out and posting the Interview Recruitment Brochure (Attachment A) in locations frequented
by street youth. To assure the highest degree of coverage among youth, two initial seeds will
be identified in each city. Once selected, a set of screening protocols that are asked before
the bulk of the interview questions begin (see Attachment B: Interview Questions) will be
used to verify that the initial seeds meet the study age range and definition for being
homeless, and are screened out for the following: inebriated or high, cognitively impaired, or
actively psychotic. To be eligible to participate in the study, individuals must be 14-21 years
of age and meet the definition of “homeless” that best describes their age group. This study
will employ the Stewart A. McKinney Act of 1987 definition if homeless for individuals over
the age of 18: An individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, or
an individual who has a primary nighttimes resident that is a) a supervised publicly or
privately owned shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including
welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing; or b) a public or private place
not designated for or ordinarily used as regular sleeping accommodations for human beings
(HUD, 1995). For those participants 18 years of age or younger (to age 14), the study will
employ the definition of “homeless” provided by the National Network of Runaway and
Youth Services: defined as someone 18 years or younger who cannot return home or has
chosen never to return home and has no permanent residence (GAO, 1989).
Initial seed respondents will be provided with a $20 gift card for their interview and will be
offered additional gift card to recruit people from their social networks to participate in the
interview. Each seed will be given three coupons (see Attachment C: Seed Coupon) to give
to homeless youth they know. Coupons will have unique identifiers that will link them to
their seed. Coupons will have an expiration date of 7-14 days to allow for tracking the rate
of return and to reduce respondent burden. Initial seed respondents will be provided a $10
gift card for each returned coupon that results in a completed interview. Thus, a respondent
who completes the interview and successfully recruits three peers would receive $50 total.
Each new participant will be offered the same number of coupons and incentives to recruit
respondents from their social networks, up to the fourth seed.
Figure 1 (see below) is a visual respresentation of how the reimbursements will operate
within the RDS design. Solid-colored circles represent homeless individuals who have
completed a personal interview. Arrows indicate the recruitment coupons given to peers.
Bold arrows signify that an individual was successfully recruited and completed a personal
interview. Therefore, each bold arrow indicates a $10 gift card for the recruiter. Thin arrows
that lead to circles marked with an “X” indicate that the coupon was not returned and the
seed was unsuccessful.

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Two seed respondents will be identified in each city. Previous work conducted by
Dombrowski with indigenous populations in Canada has demonstration that about half of all
initial seeds do not start network trees (see Figure 1, Seed 2) and for every three coupons
given to a respondent, only 1.1-1.4 were returned for successful interviews.

Given the contractor‟s previous success in recruiting and interviewing homeless adolescents
and women, they anticipate that for every three coupons given, two successful interviews
will be achieved. An example of a successful seed can be seen in Figure 1, Seed 1. Based on
Heckathorn‟s analyses, “previous applications of RDS showed that the number of waves
required for the sample to reach equilibrium is not large, generally not more than four to six”
(Heckathorn et al., 2002, p. 58). Equilibrium indicates that further iterations are unlikely to
change the demographics of the samples (Salganik & Heckathorn, 2004; Salganik, 2006).
Based on these assumptions, it is estimated that each seed that is successfully initiated will
result in 31 interviews by the 4th recruitment wave for a sample of 62 homeless street youth
in each city. To account for seeds that never initiate, a third seed will be selected in cities for
which half the sample has not been identified seven weeks after the data collection begins.
Based on the work by Dombrowski, coupons should only be redeemed in person at the SOP
agency. Prior experience suggests that some level of inconvenience is needed for
respondents to recruit “closer” network members they believe will actually participate,
increasing their odds for reimbursement. Without his level of involvement, it is difficult to
saturate personal networks and draw conclusions about the representativeness of the sample.
Recruitment and interviews will take place over a 5 month period.
Focus groups: A convenience sample will be used for the focus groups. SOP agency staff
will recruit focus group participants (see Attachment D: Focus Group Recruitment Brochure,
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Attachment E: Focus Group Consent, and Attachment F: Focus Group Questions). Three
focus groups of six participants each will be conducted at each of the 11 sites.

A3. Improved Information Technology to Reduce Burden
Computer Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI) will be employed using netbooks. General
questions will be administered by trained interviewers. Respondents will answer more
sensitive questions directly on the netbooks. This methodology reduces burden by saving
time for both the interviewer and the respondent by providing a streamline interview that
includes screening questions and automatic skip patterns. The netbooks are highly mobile
and can be transported anywhere for administration of the interview. The netbook interview
and technology also eliminate the need for paper forms, data coding, and data entry; data are
downloaded to the contractor‟s secure server. Finally, the netbooks are password protected,
thus ensuring the safety and security of the data.

A4. Efforts to Identify Duplication
As mentioned in A.1, only a few, limited pieces of data on aggregate provision of service per
SOP grantee is currently available. While FYSB has more detailed information on homeless
youth in its Basic Centers Program (BCP) and Transitional Living Program (TLP), the youth
in those programs – younger and still connected to families for BCP, older and able to
tolerate the structure and rules of a TLP – are qualitatively different from the youth who are
served by the SOP. The few studies conducted nationally on street youth indicate that are the
most vulnerable, difficult to reach, chronically homeless, and in need mental, physical and
behavioral health services. Information from the point of view of youth being served by SOP
grantees is needed to improve services and outreach to street youth.

A5. Involvement of Small Organizations
Eleven SOP grantees will be involved in data collection. Data collection processes have
been streamlined to reduce administrative burden. The interview will be programmed and
loaded onto hand-held computer netbooks for ease of administration. The programmed
interview includes screening questions and automatic skip patterns to avoid unnecessary
questions. Issues of data coding and data entry are eliminated by using the CAPI technology,
thus reducing burden, as SOP grantee staff can easily download interview data electronically
to the contractor‟s secure server. Focus groups will be recorded, with recordings
electronically downloaded to the contractor‟s secure server and collected and transcribed by
the contractor.

A6. Consequences of Less Frequent Data Collection
This is a one time data collection.

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A7. Special Circumstances
There are no special circumstances for the proposed data collection efforts.

A8. Federal Register Notice and Consultation
In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13) and Office of
Management and Budget (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. The first Federal Register
notice to renew ACF‟s generic clearance for pretesting was published in the Federal Register
on June 10, 2011 (vol. 76, no. 112, p. 34077), inviting public comment on our plans to
submit this request. ACF received no comments or questions in response to this notice.
The second Federal Register notice was published in the Federal Register on August 29,
2011 (vol.76, no. 167, p. 53682.
A9. Payment of Respondents
As discussed above in section A2., respondents will be provided $20 per CAPI, $20 per focus
group, and an additional $10 (up to $30) for each new respondent that a participant recruits
(i.e., up to 3 new respondents), as a token of appreciation.
Incentives justification: Monetary incentives are widely used in community-based physical
and mental health research. One concern is that monetary incentives represent an
unnecessary allocation of scarce monetary resources. From a methodological standpoint,
however, monetary incentives are well justified if they increase participant response rates and
thus allow for the collection of important information that might otherwise go undetected
(Ensign, 2005). From an ethical standpoint, the most central concern is that monetary
incentives can coerce individuals into taking risks that they otherwise would not take. This is
especially true for low-income and homeless individuals who may lack the resources
necessary to meet basic physical and psychological needs. These concerns are most relevant
to medical studies in which, for example, the efficacy of a new medication or medical
treatment is being examined. It has been found, however, that such concerns are of little
relevance to minimally invasive procedures that carry little or no risk, such as personal
interviews or focus groups in which individual opinions, attitudes or behaviors (e.g., service
utilization) are of interest. This conclusion was reached by Grant & Sugarman (2004) as part
of the discussion of the ethical concerns with monetary incentives for the American
Psychological Association‟s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct.
Another important concern, related both to the allocation of resources and ethical practices, is
the determination of an appropriate incentive amount. In discussing this issue in relation to
ethical practices, Dickert and Grady (1999) reviewed several payment models, and concluded
that a “wage-payment” approach maintains the integrity of widely accepted scientific ethical
codes. In the wage-payment approach, participation in research studies is conceptualized as
a form of employment. They argue that participation in research studies require minimal
skills and may thus be viewed as a low-skill job.
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In order to determine the appropriate amount to offer
respondents, data regarding the minimum and median wages
in each of the study states was gathered from the US
Department of Labor (DOL; 2012).
This information is reported in Table 1. The process of
obtaining informed consent (with signed consent forms; see
Attachment G: Interview Consent Form–Seed and
Attachment H: Interview Consent Form–Non-Seed) and
participation in the computer-assisted personal interview
(CAPI) will require approximately 1.25 hours of the
respondent‟s time. Respondents will be allowed to take a
10-15 minute break during the interview if they choose. The
process of obtaining informed consent (with signed consent
forms) and focus group participation will require approximately 1.5 hours of the respondent‟s
time. Combined with the DOL information on hourly wages and opportunity costs (Ensign,
2003), we determined that $20 per hour each for CAPIs and focus group participation
represents both a fair and ethical amount. This amount allows participants to be
compensated for their time and effort while not being large enough to raise any concerns
regarding coercion. We will provide gift cards in order to eliminate the possibility of the
reimbursement being used to purchase ethically unjustifiable items (e.g., drugs; see Ensign,
2003, for the use of this approach). The gift cards will be purchased from stores that sell
grocery items, hygiene products, and clothing, but not alcohol or tobacco.
The sampling design of this project utilizes Respondent Driven Sampling (RDS), which
requires that participants are reimbursed for recruiting others. Each seed will be given three
coupons (Attachment C) to give to homeless youth that they know. Coupons will have
unique identifiers that will link them to their seed. Coupons will also have an expiration date
of 7-14 days to track the rate of return. Seed respondents will be provided a $10 gift card for
each returned coupon that results in a completed interview for their recruitment effort. It is
estimated that it will take each seed approximately one hour to successfully recruit another
respondent and collect their gift card (corresponding with an hourly wage of approximately
$10 per hour). Thus, a respondent who completes the interview and successfully recruits
three peers would receive $50 total. Each new participant will be offered the same number
of coupons and gift cards to recruit respondents from their social networks, up unto the fourth
seed.

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A10. Confidentiality of Respondents
The data collection will employ Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) techniques
for the personal interviews. Interviews will be conducted on netbooks programmed with
Voxco software and set to upload directly to the contractor‟s secure server. Data stored on
the computers will be only identified by Random ID number and will be encrypted to protect
respondents‟ identities. Respondents will only be identified on the CAPI program by
Random ID. Random ID numbers will also be assigned to RDS coupons, allowing for
linkage of social network trees.
The focus groups will be audio recorded (using Olympus digital recorders). Each SOP
grantee will receive a recorder, which will be sent to the contractor upon the completion of
all three focus groups. The audio files will be downloaded to the contractor‟s secure server.
All audio files will be transcribed by staff hired by the contractor and will complete required
training and sign a confidentiality agreement before beginning work on the transcriptions.
Typed transcripts will be de-identified and saved on the contractor‟s secure server. Only
project staff will have access to the typed transcripts. Audio files will be kept for one year
after the completion of the project in order to allow project staff to respond to any questions
that may arise from SOP grantees or FYSB staff. Contract staff will have a list of prearranged random ID numbers to assign to focus group participants and will indicate when
those random numbers have been used.
Only contract staff will have access to the files that will link the respondents to their answers.
All private information will be kept separate for the duration of the project. Respondents will
be informed that their information will be kept private to the extent permitted by law.
A11. Sensitive Questions
The majority of the interview content is non-invasive. For example, most questions deal with
opinions associated with service use and agency programs. Some demographic information
is collected to give street outreach agencies a better understanding of their clients. The
interview does include screening questions to rule out youth that are inebriated or high,
cognitively impaired, or actively psychotic, and a brief section in the interview asks
questions about past sexual activity, STI's, substance use, and mental health and criminal
behavior (see Attachment B: Interview Questions). Respondents will be informed that their
information will be kept private to the extent permitted by law and that their participation is
voluntary. They may choose to not answer a question and can move on to the next one.
These questions have been implemented by the contractor previously in other homeless youth
studies and are commonly asked in surveys of homeless youth in order to understand the
extent of their problems and service needs.
Runaway and homeless youth experience emotional and physical trauma that they carry with
them onto the streets. Two decades of research on runaway and homeless adolescents make
it very clear that the vast majority run from or drift out of disorganized families. Several
studies have documented problems in the caretaker-child relationship ranging from control
group studies of bonding, attachment, and parental care (Daddis, Braddock, Cuers, Elliot, &
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Kelly, 1993; Schweitzer, Hier, & Terry, 1994; Votta & Manion, 2003) to caretaker and
runaway child reports on parenting behaviors and mutual violence (Whitbeck, Hoyt, &
Ackley, 1997). There have been numerous studies based on adolescent self-reports that
indicate high levels of physical and sexual abuse among chronic runaways and homeless
youth perpetrated by caretakers (Farber, Kinast, McCoard, & Falkner, 1984; Janus,
Archambault, Brown, & Welsh, 1995; Janus, Burgess, & McCormack, 1987; Kaufman &
Widom, 1999; Kennedy, 1991; Kufeldt & Nimmo, 1987; Kurtz, Kurtz, & Jarvis, 1991;
Molnar, Shade, Kral, Booth, & Watters, 1998; Mounier & Andujo, 2003; Noell, Rohde,
Seeley, & Ochs, 2001; Pennridge et al., 1990; Rotheram-Borus, Mahler, Koopman, &
Langabeer, 1996; Ryan, Kilmer, Cauce, Watanabe, & Hoyt, 2000; Tyler, Hoyt, Whitbeck, &
Cauce, 2001; Tyler, Whitbeck, Hoyt, & Cauce, 2004; Whitbeck and Hoyt, 1999; Whitbeck &
Simons, 1993, p.6).
Homeless youth may also be arrested or taken into police custody for other acts committed
while away from the home, including violation of probation, burglary, drug use, or drug
dealing. Researchers emphasize that criminal offenses or illegal acts committed by runaways
frequently are motivated by basic survival needs, such as food and shelter; the presence of
adverse situations, such as hunger and unemployment; self-medication through use of alcohol
and drugs; and a lack of opportunities for legitimate self-support (Kaufman & Widom, 1999;
McCarthy & Hagan, 2001; Whitbeck & Hoyt, 1999). Additionally, while running away can
increase the odds of the youth engaging in delinquent or criminal behavior, it can also
increase the odds of the youth being exposed to or becoming the victim of criminal or
delinquent acts (Hammer et al., 2002; Hoyt, Ryan, & Cauce, 1999). For example, it was
found by Hoyt and colleagues (1999) that the amount of time homeless adolescents spent
living on the streets, as well as prior experience of personal assault, was associated with
increased risk of criminal victimization.
Finally, homeless young people living on the street tend to be very involved in „street‟
networks and culture. Their primary communities are comprised of other street-involved
young people who get most, if not all, of their needs met through engaging in the street
economy, such as eating at soup kitchens, sleeping outdoors, and spare-changing/begging for
money (Thompson et al., 2006) due to estrangement from their families and lack of desire on
their part and/or their families to reconnect. It has been shown that acculturation to the
streets and street economy progresses with the length of exposure to homelessness and
homeless peers (Auerswald & Eyre, 2002; Gaetz, 2004; Kidd, 2003; Kipke et al., 1997).
„The length of time the individual is homeless and on the street suggests that homelessness is
dangerously close to becoming a way of life for some young people‟ (Reid & Klee, 1999, p.
24).
A growing body of research demonstrates the need for services among this highly vulnerable
population. Without social service intervention, there is an increased likelihood of repeated
exposure to trauma and victimization (Gaetz, 2004; Kipke et al., 1997; Thompson, 2006;
Tyler et al., 2001; Whitbeck & Hoyt, 1999). Thus, agencies providing services to homeless
individuals must identify the extent of their needs and adopt a proactive approach by
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contacting and offering assistance to homeless street youth, and, if possible, early in their
homeless experience before they become entrenched in street culture (Reid & Klee, 1999).

A12. Estimation of Information Collection Burden

Average
Burden
Hours Per
Response

Instrument

Annual
Number of
Respondents

Number of
Responses Per
Respondent

Focus Groups

264

1

1.25

ComputerAssisted
Personal
Interviews

682

1

1.25

Estimated Annual Burden Sub-total

Average
Hourly
Wage

Total Annual
Cost

330

$13.33

$4,398.90

852.5

$13.33

$11,363.83

Total
Burden
Hours

1,182.5

$15,762.73

A13. Cost Burden to Respondents or Record Keepers
There are no additional costs to respondents or recordkeepers

A14. Estimate of Cost to the Federal Government
The average annualized cost to the Federal government is $275,000.

A15. Change in Burden
This is an additional collection under the formative generic clearance.

A16. Plan and Time Schedule for Information Collection, Tabulation and Publication
The information that is collected will be for internal use only. Data collection is scheduled to
occur over a six month period, including one month for pilot testing the RDS method and the
CAPIs.

A17. Reasons Not to Display OMB Expiration Date
All instruments will display the expiration date for OMB approval.

A18. Exceptions to Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions
No exceptions are necessary for this information collection.

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