Florida Prototype Project Pilot Feedback

Florida Prototype Project Focus Group Guide

PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT OF 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13) The purpose of this information collection is to gather feedback on capacity building products and services to better meet the needs of child welfare professionals. Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 60 minutes per respondent, including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and reviewing the collection of information. This is a voluntary collection of information. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information subject to the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The control number for this project is 0970-0401. The control number expires on 5/31/2021. If you have any comments on this collection of information, please contact Roshanda Shoulders, ACF, Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) by e-mail at Roshanda.Shoulders@ACF.hhs.gov.

Facilitator Guidelines

Provide an introduction. Introduce leaders of the focus group and roles of each in supporting the meeting (i.e., facilitator, note taker).

Briefly discuss the purpose of the interview:  The purpose of today’s focus group is to gather feedback about your experiences with the Florida Prototype Project. Your contributions to the evaluation effort are extremely valuable and will be used to improve future services.

Convey to participants our confidentiality policy: (1) the focus group is voluntary; (2) they can decline to answer any questions, or can stop participating in the focus group at any time (3) Data from this focus group will be held in confidence by the evaluation team. The Information from today’s focus group will be reported and may be shared with the Children’s Bureau. When reported this information will be aggregated across all States involved in the pilot and individual’s names will not be associated with it. The names of individuals who participated in the focus group will not be shared. In some instances, however, the information provided about the strengths and challenges of the pilot process might be tied to the specific site in our reporting (4) please respect others’ privacy by not sharing any information from the focus group outside the focus group.

Confirm permission to tape record the focus group: We would like to record today’s focus group to ensure we capture the discussion accurately and completely. Only evaluation team members will have access to this recording.  If any person in the group chooses not to have the focus group recorded, we will be taking notes instead. In our confirmation e-mails to each participant before today’s call, there were no objections to recording today’s focus group. I would like to confirm that we still have the group’s permission to record the session. Would anyone prefer we not record this focus group? [Start recording if there are no objections.]

Focus Group Questions

Note to facilitator: Italicized questions are to be used as optional probes to encourage respondents to expand upon their responses. Questions in bold font are key questions that should be prioritized if time becomes an issue.

1. What is your overall impression of the stakeholder representation in the project activities?

Optional probes:

• Which (if any) roles or responsibilities were missing? What was the impact of this?

• Were there any roles or responsibilities that seem to have too much voice or representation? What was the impact of this?

2. In the survey we sent after the final large group meeting (Nov 17-18), many of you provided suggestions to ensure that the right people (roles and responsibilities represented) are involved in future project activities. The following are some of the ideas provided: [insert examples from related survey question]. What is your overall impression of these suggestions?

Optional probes:

• How would you change or add to these suggestions?

• What additional suggestions do you have?

3. How prepared did you feel for the project activities, beyond the first two large group sessions (September 9^th and 15^th)?

Optional probes:

• What was helpful about the first two large group sessions? What was less helpful? Why?

• Which project activities did you feel better prepared for? Which project activities did you feel less prepared for? Why?

4. In the survey we sent after the final large group meeting (Nov 17-18), many of you provided suggestions to ensure that participants are fully prepared for project activities like this in the future. The following are some of the ideas provided: [examples from related survey question]. What is your overall impression of these suggestions?

Optional probes:

• How would you change or add to these suggestions?

• What additional suggestions do you have?

5. What was your overall impression of participating virtually in all project activities?

Optional probes:

• Which activities seemed to work well virtually? Which did not work well? Why?

• How engaged were you in the virtual environment? How was your engagement different in the virtual environment than it would have been in-person?

6. What were the key factors that promoted engagement among participants in the virtual environment?

7. What were the barriers for promoting engagement among participants in the virtual environment?

8. In the survey we sent after the final large group meeting (Nov 17-18), many of you provided suggestions to ensure virtual meetings are effective. The following are some of the ideas provided: [examples from related survey question]. What is your overall impression of these suggestions?

Optional probes:

• How would you change or add to these suggestions?

• What additional suggestions do you have?

9. How would you describe the interaction among participants that you experienced during project activities?

Optional Probes:

• Did you feel like members of the [select from following, excluding stakeholder group participating in focus group: CW Agency, Federal Team, Legal/Judicial Community, or TA Team] worked with you as a partner?

• What made it feel like a partnership? Or not?

• How did the structure of the virtual meetings (e.g., breakout group work) affect your participation?

10. In the survey we sent after the final large group meeting (Nov 17-18), many of you provided suggestions to ensure that participants are fully engaged with project activities and meaningfully engaged with one another. The following are some of the ideas provided: [examples from related survey question]. What is your overall impression of these suggestions?

Optional probes:

• How would you change or add to these suggestions?

• What additional suggestions do you have?

11. What types of data did you use during project activities?

Optional probes:

• Was there any data missing that should have been explored?

• Was there too much data?

• How was this data used?

12. To what extent were each of the deliverables informed by data or research?

• Identification of root causes

• Identification of cross cutting themes

• Development of theory of change (s)

• Selection of interventions or strategies

13. In the survey we sent after the final large group meeting (Nov 17-18), many of you provided suggestions for the activities related to helping participants use data. The following are some of the ideas provided: [examples from related survey question]. What is your overall impression of these suggestions?

Optional probes:

• How would you change or add to these suggestions?

• What additional suggestions do you have?

14. How would you describe your motivation and interest to use the following processes in future system improvement efforts in your agency:

• Using data to describe problems and analyze root causes

• Creating a theory of change or

• Selecting relevant strategies

Optional probes:

• Which project components are you most interested in using for future system improvement efforts? Which project components are you least interested in? Why?

• What modifications would you make to ensure that the project components are relevant and useful for your agency’s context?

15. What organizational factors will support your use of these project components for future system improvements? What barriers do you have anticipate encountering if you were to use these project components for future system improvement efforts?

16. In the survey we sent after the final large group meeting (Nov 17-18), many of you provided suggestions about how to increase the desire to use some of the processes used during the project in future system improvement efforts in your agency. The following are some of the ideas provided: [examples from related survey question]. What is your overall impression of these suggestions?

Optional probes:

• How would you change or add to these suggestions?

• What additional suggestions do you have?

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