Memo - Nonsub Change Request - Surveys

MEMORANDUM

TO: Steph Tatham

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

FROM: Samantha Illangasekare

Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE)

Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

DATE: March 27, 2017

SUBJECT: Non-Substantive Change Request to the Strengthening Relationship and Marriage Education Services (STREAMS) Evaluation Information Collection (0970-0481)

This non-substantive change request is for instruments associated with the Strengthening Relationship and Marriage Education Services (STREAMS) Evaluation. The purpose of STREAMS is to measure the effectiveness and quality of healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs, program components, and implementation factors designed to strengthen and improve the quality of romantic relationships. The evaluation involves process and impact study data collection from six HMRE programs funded by the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For the evaluation, the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) within ACF contracted with Mathematica Policy Research to collect data to support both a process study and an impact study in each of the six evaluation sites. The information collection request (ICR) associated with the STREAMS evaluation received OMB approval on July 5, 2016.

As explained in the supporting statements for the approved ICR, the data collection instruments for the STREAMS impact study will vary across the six evaluation sites, depending on the target population and specific program being tested. In five of six evaluation sites, STREAMS will collect baseline and follow-up survey data. There are two different versions of both the baseline and follow-up surveys, one tailored for sites serving youth in high schools and the other tailored for sites serving adults. In one evaluation site, STREAMS will not collect baseline or follow-up survey data. In this site, the evaluation team will rely solely on client characteristic and program participation data being collected as part of ACF’s performance measure data collection.

This non-substantive change request serves two purposes:

1. Additional detail on the STREAMS follow-up survey for sites serving adults. OMB’s initial approval of this ICR covered twelve data collection instruments. For one of these instruments—the follow-up survey for sites serving adults—ACF agreed to provide additional detail on the instrument as a non-substantive change request prior to use of the instrument in September, 2017. Per these terms, ACF is providing the full protocol for this instrument as an attachment to this memo. This full protocol replaces the earlier draft description of the instrument ACF provided with the initial ICR submission (Attachment D is replaced with Instrument 11). In addition, ACF is also providing a question-by-question justification for the instrument. This question-by-question justification, which was not included in the initial ICR submission, is being provided as an additional supplementary document, referred to as Attachment R.

2. Modifications to the STREAMS follow-up survey for sites serving youth. ACF also requests approval for minor modifications to the follow-up survey for sites serving youth in high schools. The full protocol for this instrument was submitted and approved with the initial ICR submission. ACF is now proposing replacing several questions on this instrument to better align with the programming being offered in these sites. Because the proposed modifications involve both adding and deleting questions from the instrument, the estimated burden is not affected. Attached to this memo is the revised instrument. ACF has also revised the supporting question-by-question justification for this instrument, referred to in the initial ICR as Attachment B.

We have updated the supporting statements (Part A - Justification and Part B - Statistical Methods) of the approved ICR to reflect these requested revisions. We have included these revised documents for OMB review.

We look forward to receiving your response to this non-substantive change request. In the meantime, please feel free to contact me, if you have any questions about the request.

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