Child Care Interstate Background Check (CC-IBaCs) Environmental Scan

Appendix H.2: Interview Guide Nlets

U.S. Department of Health and Human Service (DHHS) Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE)

Child Care Interstate Background Checks (CC-IBaCs) Environmental Scan

Interview Guide for National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (Nlets) Custodian

Thank you for agreeing to participate in this interview today. My name is __________. I work for CNA, a research organization based in Arlington, VA. We are working with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Child Care and Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation to find ways to improve the implementation of the interstate background checks on child care workers that are required under the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) Act of 2014. For this study, we are interviewing a wide range of key people involved in the background check process. ACF will use the data collected through the interviews to support the development of promising solutions to strengthen nationwide implementation of child care background checks as mandated by the CCDBG Act and provide states and territories with additional technical assistance to facilitate implementation. Please note that the sole purpose of this study is to gather data to inform how ACF can better support state and territory agencies.

Before we get started, there are a few things I should mention. This is a research project, and your participation is voluntary. We expect that the interview will take about 30 minutes to complete. We will summarize your information and use it to produce a final report that will be used for internal planning at the Office of Child Care, but we will not identify or quote any of the specific people interviewed for the report. We aim to summarize findings so that comments cannot be attributed to any specific person.

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. The OMB number for this information collection is 0970-0356 and the expiration date is 06/30/2021.

Do you have any questions before we start?

With your permission, we would like to record the interview. The recording will be used to help us ensure our notetaking is accurate. The recordings will be accessible only to the project team at CNA, and will not be shared with the Office of Child Care. We will destroy the recordings after the study is complete. Are you okay with us recording our interview today?

1. What is your role with Nlets?

2. I’m interested in finding out what you know about the child care background check requirements. Have you or your agency had any discussions or exchanged information about the requirement to conduct background checks of child care workers? If so, please describe it.

PROBES: What groups were involved in the discussions or information exchange?

What was the outcome?

About how long ago was this?

3. What is the basic process for requesting and responding to state criminal history requests via Nlets?

PROBES: Does the requestor identify the requesting organization, the purpose of the request?

Are there any fees to use the system?

Is the request reviewed by anyone?

What is normal turnaround time and format of response?

4. How is the criminal history and sex offender data available from Nlets different from the data available through an FBI criminal history/NSOR request?

5. Who is authorized to access Nlets for non-criminal justice employment purposes?

PROBE: [If no one] Are there any exceptions?

6. Who is authorized to receive data via Nlets for non-criminal justice employment purposes?

PROBE: [If no one] Are there any exceptions?

7. What are the barriers to providing data via Nlets for out-of-state non-criminal justice users?

[Interviewer: For each barrier identified, ask the respondent to describe the issue and how it affects out-of-state criminal history and SOR checks.]

PROBE: Do barriers include….

• Nlets regulations?

• State CHRI privacy restrictions?

• Cost of extra volume?

• Staff time to process?

• Other?

8. What would be required to make Nlets usable for child care worker background checks?

PROBES: Would the things required include…

• Legislative changes?

• Additional resources?

• New automated systems?

• Other?

9. What would you like to see the federal government do to support implementation of out-of-state background checks for child care workers?

10. Are there any other individuals from other programs or interested agencies that you think we should interview for this study?

3