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

Appendix E: Interview Guide SOR Registry Custodian

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 Sex Offender Registry (SOR) Custodians

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.

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 an hour 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. 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.

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. We will destroy the recordings after the study is complete. Are you okay with us recording?

1. What is your role with the sex offender registry in [State]?

2. Did you or your agency have any contact with your State’s child care agency about the requirement to check the sex offender registry to make sure people who are working in child care aren’t registered sex offenders? [Interviewer: Ask the respondent to describe their contact(s) with the child care agency.] Are contacts with the child care agency ongoing?

3. How does the data in your non-public registry differ from what is available on your public-facing website? What information in your registry is not shared with NSOR?

PROBES: Are there differences regarding:

• Juvenile records?

• Tier 1 records/misdemeanors?

• Other differences?

4. How often do requesters who need a SOR check contact your agency for a check of your non-public registry (not the public-facing website database)? How often are these request made by out-of-state requestors?

5. What data does your State provide in response to searches made on the public sex offender website? What data is provided when an out-of-state request is made to your non-public sex offender registry?

PROBES: Do you provide…

• All available information?

• A portion of the available information?

• A red light/green light indicator?

• No information?

What is included in all available information?

If you can only provide a portion of available information, what information is provided?

If you can only provide a red light/green light indicator, what exactly does the red light indicator mean? ... the green light indicator? What factors do you use to assign a red or green light?

Does your registry provide information if the offense is a misdemeanor? …if the record is for a juvenile?

Does your state include SOR data in your criminal history check results?

THE PROCESS FOR RECEIVING AND RESPONDING TO OUT-OF-STATE REQUESTS

Interviewer: Ask questions 7 – 10 if the information provided to requestors differs when a request is made to the public-facing website vs. the full sex offender registry.

I’d like to ask the next set of questions about requests made to your full (non-public) sex offender registry.

6. How do you receive requests from out-of-state requestors?

PROBES: Do you accept requests using an online request form?

… by phone or fax?

… email or regular mail?

If an out-of-state requestor has more than one person they need to check against your sex offender registry, can they request multiple searches in one request or must each request be made individually?

Are requests from out-of-state entities transmitted to you from your State’s child care agency?

Can you tell when requests come from out-of-state?

7. Do you provide instructions for how to make a request on your website?

PROBES: Do you provide a form for requestors to fill out?

Do you provide a phone number and contact person if requestors have questions?

8. What data do you use for searching the registry? Are searches done by name?

PROBES: [If yes] What name information is required for you to complete a search? …Last name only, first and last, partial match on name?

Does your search process use other demographic information (for example, date of birth) or other identifying number (for example, SSN or driver’s license number)?

What do you do when multiple possible matches are returned?

[If no] Can your registry be searched using fingerprints?

9. How are results conveyed to the requestor?

PROBES: Are results provided to the requestor…

• Email

• Mail

• Telephone

• Fax

• Other

ADMINISTRATIVE ISSUES

10) Is there a fee to search your public-facing website? If yes, what is this fee? Is there a fee to receive information from your non-public registry? If yes, what fee do you charge to out-of-state requestors? How is payment collected?

11) How long does it take you to respond to out-of-state requests made to your non-public registry on average?

PROBE: Do you have an existing backlog of requests?

[If yes] How large is the backlog?

12) How many years of history are there in your registry (that is, when did the registry begin operations)? [If the registry is less than 10 years old (i.e., established in 2009 or after)], what is the procedure for searching older records?

PROBES: Are records removed from your registry based on record expiration dates?

CHALLENGES AND SOLUTIONS

13) What challenges have you encountered in responding to out-of-state requests for sex offender registry searches? [Interviewer: Consider the answers to questions above when probing for challenges. For each challenge identified, ask the respondent to describe the issue and how it affects out-of-state registry checks.]

PROBES: Are there challenges related to …

• Staffing?

• Communicating with out-of-state requestors?

• Lack of automation?

• Payment of fees

• Difficulty with linking automated systems?

• Restrictions on the release of information?

• Legislative authority to respond [with full information] to out-of-state requests?

[If staffing is a challenge ask] How large is your staff shortage (in terms of number of staff)?

14) How do you think the process can be made easier for you and for requesting states?

PROBES: Which of the barriers that you’ve identified do you see as the barrier most in need of an immediate solution?

What kind of support or resources from the federal government would assist you in overcoming the implementation challenges you’ve mentioned?

15) Are there any other people in your state from other programs or interested agencies that you think we should interview for this study?

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