Attachment B - Formative Generic Usage Report

Attachment b: use of Formative generic CLEARANCE (0970-0356) From 2012-2015

Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation

Administration for Children and Families

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

7^th Floor, West Aerospace Building

370 L’Enfant Promenade, SW

Washington, D.C. 20447

In January 2012, OMB approved ACF’s request to renew the generic information collection for formative data collections (0970-0356). This report describes the use of the generic IC over the three years of approval, including the number of hours used, as well as the nature and results of the activities completed under this generic clearance.

The renewal of the generic IC was approved for three years, during which time ACF requested nine generic ICs for pretesting. The use of the formative generic IC has been beneficial to the development and improvement of ACF program and demonstration evaluations. Over the three years, OPRE was approved to collect information from 1205 respondents for 1501 hours of burden. The increased use is indicative of how useful this formative information collection process has been to informing our research and evaluation projects.

Date	Project	Request Type	Annual # Respondents	Annual # Burden Hours
April 2012	ACF Youth Demonstration Development Project	Gen IC	84	84
August 2012	Change to Increase Burden	Increased burden to 1600 hours
October 2012	Street Outreach Program Data Collection Project	Gen IC	880	1100
October 2012	ACF Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) Project	Gen IC	156	156
July 2014	Using Administrative Data to Answer and Inform Program and Policy Decisions	Gen IC	19	29
January 2015	MIECHV Benchmarks Listening Sessions	Gen IC	66	132
Total over 3 Years			1205	1501

Example uses of the Formative Generic Clearance

Family-Teacher/Provider Relationship Quality measure development (FTPRQ) project

The Family-Teacher/Provider Relationship Quality measure development (FTPRQ) project created a set of new measures to assess the quality of the relationship between families of young children (ages 0-5 years) and the child’s teacher or child care provider. These relationships are an important component of family engagement in early childhood programs, but no appropriate measure existed.

Both the formative generic clearance (0970-0356) and the pre-testing generic clearance (0970-0355) were integral in developing these measures. Under the formative generic clearance, ACF/OPRE conducted focus groups with families and teachers/providers. These focus groups were essential for ensuring that our measures were based on a realistic conceptual model and that we were using terminology and language that families and teachers/providers would understand. After developing initial drafts of measures, which were based in part on the results of the focus groups as well as an extensive review of the literature and pre-existing related measures, ACF received permission conduct cognitive interviews under the pre-testing generic clearance. Three rounds of cognitive interviews were conducted, which further enabled us to test and refine our measures, so that they were ready for testing in pilot and field tests (conducted under OMB clearance 0970-0420). The thoroughly tested and final measures were released in November 2014 and have been very well-received by the field.

Child Care Administrative Data Analysis Center

The Child Care Administrative Data Analysis Center (CCADAC) aims to support the use of administrative data to address child care policy-relevant research questions. The CCADAC is informed by projects conducted in related areas, such as ACF’s Family Self-Sufficiency Research Data Center and the Department of Education’s Center for IDEA Early Childhood Data Systems. We have also compiled relevant resources from other fields. However, to create resources that can specifically support child care policy research, we required information regarding the specific needs and capacities of CCDF Administrators and child care subsidy agencies. In May 2014, ACF requested permission to conduct phone interviews with Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) State/Territory Administrators to collect such information.

Using ACF’s generic clearance for Formative Data Collection for Informing Policy Research, we were able to conduct interviews with administrators and staff in CCDF Lead Agencies to learn about their use of administrative data and the barriers they have encountered when trying to use administrative data. Respondents represented states that have done little to date with their administrative data, as well as states that are already quite advanced in their use of administrative data, such as current or previous recipients of Race to the Top – Early Learning Challenge grants and ACF Child Care Research Partnership grants. We expect that the interviews, conducted between August and December 2014, will provide us with critical information regarding the types of resources that would be of most use to states and help us plan our future child care policy research efforts.