Appendix A: Parent Recruitment Email

Attachment A. Parent Recruitment Email

OMB Control No: 0970-0531

Expiration Date: 07/31/2022

Dear Parent:

We hope you are well and healthy during this difficult time. I’m writing to invite you to participate in a virtual focus group to discuss you and your teenager’s experiences in the [SRAE PROGRAM NAME] and to tell us how you think sexual risk avoidance, sexual health, and relationship education programs could work better for youth and their families.

This is an important research study conducted by an independent research firm called Mathematica. Mathematica is part of a team that the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has funded to learn more about how to teach youth about sexual risk avoidance and improve an array of health outcomes for youth.

We would like to invite you to participate in an on-line focus group. The focus group runs over three days and it should take you about 30 minutes each day to complete your participation. It will take place on [DAYS, DATES]. We will be using QualBoard, an online bulletin board where you will see and respond to questions we will pose, and you will read and respond to your fellow participant’s answers. QualBoard is not a real time chat so you can log in at your convenience. We expect participants to log in once per day for three days, as new questions are posed each day.  Your responses will not be linked to your real name.  For your time and complete participation, you will receive a $35 gift card.

If you are interested in participating in this online conversation, please email or call our team at: EMAIL@mathematica-mpr.com or (202) 264-3498.

We will collect basic information such as your name, email address, and telephone number so that we can send you further instructions on how to access the QualBoard, answer questions you may have about the study, and call or text you to remind you of the group start date.

Please note that being part of this discussion is completely voluntary. There are no penalties or consequences for not participating. To the fullest extent permissible by law, we will keep the information you share with us private. We will only use first names. Only the researchers will see any of the notes from our discussion when it closes to the group. We are also talking with other parents in other states. Ultimately, we will prepare a short report of findings across all of the virtual focus groups. No names or personal identifiers will ever be used in this report. If we use quotes from this discussion, we will not include the real name of the person who made the statement. All names will be changed to ensure privacy.

THE PAPERWORK REDUCTION ACT OF 1995

The described collection of information is voluntary and will be used to provide the Administration for Children and Families with information to help develop and refine program and grantee processes in the area of adolescent pregnancy prevention. Public reporting burden for the described collection of information is estimated to average 90 minutes per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, gathering and maintaining the data needed, 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. The OMB number and expiration date for the described collection are OMB #: 0970-0531, Exp: 07/31/2022. Send comments regarding the burden estimate or any other aspect of this collection of information, including suggestions for reducing this burden to Caryn Blitz at Caryn.Blitz@acf.hhs.gov.

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