NonSub Change Memo - COVID Changes_AMCS_May 2020

To: Josh Brammer

Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA)

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

From: Laura Hoard

Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation (OPRE)

Administration for Children and Families (ACF)

Date: May 13, 2020

Subject: Non-Substantive Change Request – Assessing Models of Coordinated Services for Low-Income Children and Their Families OMB Generic Information Collection Request: Formative Data Collections for ACF Research (OMB #0970-0356)

This memo requests approval of non-substantive changes to the approved information collection, Assessing Models of Coordinated Services for Low-Income Children and Their Families OMB Generic Information Collection Request: Formative Data Collections for ACF Research (OMB #0970-0356).

Background

On August 13, 2020, OMB approved the generic information collection request to verify ACF’s appraisal of coordinated services approaches that was gathered through a national scan of publicly available information, and to conduct telephone interviews with staff from a subset of state and local-level coordinated services approaches. To date, we have reached out to staff who are engaged in approaches to coordinate early care and education with services aimed at family economic security and/or other health and human services at the state and local levels and asked respondents to verify the accuracy of the information ACF gathered through the scan, and to complete any information not available publically. As the team was preparing to begin telephone interviews, the coronavirus pandemic was unfolding across the United States. The proposed changes are prompted by the public health crisis and our desire to understand any adjustments coordinated services approaches have made as a result of COVID-19.

Overview of Requested Changes

We would like to acknowledge possible changes to the work of state and local coordinated services approaches as a result of the coronavirus in our outreach materials and add prompts to some of the questions in the State and Local Telephone Interview Protocols (Instruments 4 and 5, respectively). Additionally, we have added a few sentences to the introductory text of the Local Telephone Interview Protocol (Instrument 5) to account for any Local Approaches that were not previously invited to complete a profile. The final question in the “Services” section of the State Telephone Interview Protocols (Instrument 4) asks for nominations of 1-2 local implementation sites. A State may nominate a Local Approach that was not included in our scan or invited to complete a profile. We added the introductory language to the Local Telephone Interview Protocol (Instrument 5) for these instances. These proposed changes do not impact burden estimates for telephone interviews.

Time Sensitivities

We would like to begin telephone interviews in June and therefore appreciate a prompt response.