State, Local and Tribal Agencies (Respondents)

OMB Control No: 0584-XXXX Expiration Date: XX/XX/20XX Expiration Date: 03/31/2019

Appendix D8. Informational Study Recording for Sponsors

Welcome! Thank you for taking the time to view this Study Video on the upcoming Summer Meals Study for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Please view the slides and listen to the entire recording. The final screen requires an action on your part.

USDA’s Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and the Seamless Summer Option (SSO) provide children in low-income areas with nutritious meals during the summer months, when school is not in session. In July 2016, 3.8 million children participated in summer meal programs. We are so thankful for sponsors like you who participate in the summer meal programs and serve our children the meals they need.

The Summer Meals Study that USDA is conducting will help us to better understand who participates and how we could better meet the nutritional needs of children in the summer. The study will ask about how satisfied participants are with the programs, and why some families and their children do not participate in summer meals. We will also be collecting information on how the meals are served, where they are served, and how healthy the summer meals are.

USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service is working with Westat to collect information from program sponsors such as yourself, site supervisors, participating children, as well as children who do not participate, and their caregivers during Summer 2018.

As a sponsor with sites selected to participate in the study, you will be asked to:

• Fill out a web survey for sponsors on program operations. It should take you 20 minutes to complete.

  • We will send you an email with a link to the Sponsor Survey.

• If you or a meal vendor are responsible for menu planning for the selected site(s), fill out the Menu Planning Survey on the web and send site menus and details for two weeks selected by the study team. It should take you 20 minutes to fill out the Menu Planning Survey and 1 hour to provide each week of menus and menu details.

  • We will send you an email with a link to the Menu Planning Survey and let you know the two weeks that are chosen to provide site menus ahead of time.

• At the end of each of the two weeks, we will send you a reminder to send the site menu for that week.

• Site menus can be provided in a format that is convenient for you.

As a program sponsor and study partner, you will be asked to:

• Support and encourage your site’s participation in the study.

• Help remind site supervisors to give surveys to caregivers of children who go do the summer meal sites. We will send sites a small number of surveys along with directions on how to give them to children, so they may take them home to their caregivers.

• If you have “closed” sites with “enrolled” children, we will ask those sites to provide us a roster of children attending the program, along with their mailing addresses, if available.

• We will use this roster to mail surveys to some of the children’s caregivers, or to mail surveys to the site and ask that they distribute them to a few children at the program to take home to their caregivers.

• The surveys will have questions for both the caregiver and the child who attends the summer program. Caregivers will receive $10 in cash after completing the survey to thank them for their time and input. Asking caregivers and their children for their feedback on the Summer Meal Programs will help us better understand how we can best meet their needs. We will ask the sites to encourage caregivers to complete the survey.

• Help remind site supervisors to fill out the Site Supervisor Survey on the web. This survey asks questions about how the site operates and who they generally serve. It should take about 20 minutes for the site supervisor to fill out.

• If site supervisors are responsible for menu planning, help remind them to fill out the menu planning survey and send menus for the two selected weeks.

The law governing the Summer Meal Programs requires organizations participating in the programs to cooperate in studies such as the Summer Meals Study. While your participation in this survey is completely voluntary, your feedback will improve our understanding of the Summer Meal Programs, including what helps or does not help your organization participate. Please know that your responses will be kept private as required by law and will not be shared with anyone not involved with conducting the study. Neither your name nor any other information about your identity will be used in any reports. The information you provide will be combined with information from everyone who participates in the study. You may skip any question that you prefer not to answer. As described in the system of record notice (SORN) titled FNS-8 USDA/FNS Studies and Reports (published in the Federal Register on April 25, 1991, volume 56, pages 19078-19080), FNS and contractors working on their behalf may collect and analyze this information for research purposes and are required to have safeguards in place to keep data private.

We look forward to your participation in this important study that will provide critical information about the summer programs. Thank you so much for your help in this study and for your participation in the summer meal program.

If you have any questions now or at any point in the study, please email us at SUMS@westat.com or call us toll-free at 1-800-XXX-XXXX.

FINAL SCREEN:

Please check the boxes to agree to support the Summer Meals Study:

• I agree to take part in the study.

• I will encourage my site(s) to participate in the study, including helping to remind them to distribute surveys to children at their sites.

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 10 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. Send comments regarding this burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden, to: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Food and Nutrition Services, Office of Policy Support, 3101 Park Center Drive, Room 1014, Alexandria, VA 22302 ATTN: PRA (0584-xxxx*). Do not return the completed form to this address.