SSA - Fatherhood FIRE Grantee Local Evaluation Plan Template

Alternative Supporting Statement for Information Collections Designed for

Research, Public Health Surveillance, and Program Evaluation Purposes

Fatherhood Family-Focused, Interconnected, Resilient, and Essential (Fatherhood FIRE) Grantee Local Evaluation Plan Template

Formative Data Collections for Research and Evaluation

0970 - 0356

Supporting Statement

Part A

December 2023

Submitted By:

Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation

Administration for Children and Families

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

4^th Floor, Mary E. Switzer Building

330 C Street, SW

Washington, D.C. 20201

Project Officers: Harmanpreet Bhatti and Katie Pahigiannis

Part A

Executive Summary

• Type of Request: This Information Collection Request is for a generic information collection under the umbrella generic, Formative Data Collections for ACF Research and Evaluation (0970-0356).

• Description of Request: Fatherhood FIRE grantees conducting local evaluations are required to develop and execute an evaluation plan that meets ACF standards for quality and rigor.¹ This information collection includes an evaluation plan template that grantees submit to ACF. The template ensures grantees systematically develop and document an evaluation plan that meets grant requirements. This information is only be used by the grantee, evaluation technical assistance provider, and ACF, and will not be published. This Generic Information Collection has been in place since December 2020, with approval extended in February 2021. This request updates the description to ensure it is current and includes accurate descriptions and burden estimates for the current work in this area. We do not intend for this information to be used as the principal basis for public policy decisions.

• Time Sensitivity: This package is being updated to ensure all information is accurate for the remaining need for information collection, which is until September 30, 2025. The evaluation plan template will continue to facilitate the approval process and help ensure strong local evaluations that meet ACF standards for quality and rigor.

A1. Necessity for Collection

As part of their grant agreements, Fatherhood Family-Focused, Interconnected, Resilient, and Essential (FIRE) grantees conducting local evaluations must develop an evaluation plan that directly aligns with the requirements provided in the funding opportunity announcement (FOA) for the demonstration grant (ACF-OFA-ZJ-1846). Only evaluation plans approved by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Office of Family Assistance (OFA) will proceed. The evaluation plan template covered in this information collection request will help facilitate the approval process, guide grantees in their evaluation efforts, and ensure grantees undertake strong local evaluations that ACF standards for quality and rigor.

There are no legal or administrative requirements that necessitate this collection. ACF is undertaking the collection at the discretion of the agency.

A2. Purpose

Purpose and Use

This information collection provides Fatherhood FIRE grantees a template to systematically document all required components of their local evaluation plans. The ACF Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) developed the Evaluation Plan Template with their evaluation TA contractor to standardize the review of Fatherhood FIRE local evaluation plans to ensure plans meet grant requirements and standards for quality and rigor. Grantees will conduct local evaluations as explicated in their evaluation plan template.

The evaluation plan template provides a way for grantees to systematically document all required components of their local evaluation plans to guide evaluation activities throughout the grant period. The template will also allow ACF to systematically review the plans to ensure they meet the standards for rigor and quality.

The evaluation TA provider will use information collected from the Evaluation Plan Templates to inform ongoing technical assistance efforts to strengthen grantee evaluation capacity. The goal of these efforts is to support grantees in designing and conducting evaluations that are well-designed and well-implemented, so that local evaluations yield strong evidence about what works and why in responsible fatherhood programming.

This proposed information collection meets the following goals of ACF’s generic clearance for formative data collections for research and evaluation (0970-0356):

• maintain a research agenda that is rigorous and relevant

• inform the provision of technical assistance.

The information collected is meant to contribute to the body of knowledge on ACF programs. It is not intended to be used as the principal basis for a decision by a federal decision-maker and is not expected to meet the threshold of influential or highly influential scientific information.

Research Questions or Tests

Not applicable; there are no research questions or tests in this information request.

Study Design

Following OMB approval, the 42 Fatherhood FIRE grantees conducting local evaluations have been completing and submitting an Evaluation Plan Template. Submitted templates are reviewed by the evaluation TA contractor to assess evaluation plans’ potential strength and alignment with ACF standards for rigor and quality. On a regular basis (e.g. monthly, quarterly or annually), determined mutually by ACF and evaluation TA contractor, grantees will be asked to provide additional clarification, response rate updates, or revise information that changes to ensure their Evaluation Plan Template is up to date and reflects grant requirements for local evaluations.

The Evaluation Plan Template reflects best practices for developing evaluation plans by documenting key evaluation activities that need to be explicated prior to carrying out the evaluation. The template follows the evaluation plan components outlined in the Fatherhood FIRE funding announcement (ACF-OFA-ZJ-1846). Data collected from the evaluation plan templates will only represent evaluation activities for the Fatherhood FIRE grantees conducting approved local evaluations (n=39, as of December 2023). Data are not intended to be generalizable beyond these grantees.

Data Collection Activity	Instrument	Respondent, Content, Purpose of Collection	Mode and Duration
Documentation of grantee evaluation plans	Evaluation Plan Template	Respondents: Fatherhood FIRE grantee staff and contracted local evaluator staff Content: Key components of grantees’ evaluation plan, including research questions, data collection plan, and methodology. Purpose: To guide grantees in their evaluation efforts and support grantees in the conduct of strong evaluations that meet ACF standards for quality and rigor.	Mode: Documented responses submitted in the template Duration: 8 hours to complete initial plan, 4 hours for annual updates, 15 minutes for response rate updates per month or 3 hours per year

Other Data Sources and Uses of Information

Additional sources of information that will be used to inform evaluation TA activities include: information abstracted from grantees’ Fatherhood FIRE grant applications, on-going communications with grantees as part of TA provision, and ACF guidance.

A3. Use of Information Technology to Reduce Burden

The evaluation TA contractor will employ information technology by allowing grantees to submit the Evaluation Plan Template electronically, to reduce burden on grantees conducting local evaluations. Additionally, the layout and format of the Evaluation Plan Template is designed to reduce burden by pre-defining response categories, as appropriate.

A4. Use of Existing Data: Efforts to reduce duplication, minimize burden, and increase utility and government efficiency

No other sources of information will allow ACF and the evaluation TA contractor to assess local evaluation plans’ potential strength and alignment with ACF standards for rigor and quality. No unnecessary information is being requested of program staff or grantees. None of the instruments will ask for information that can be reliably obtained through other sources.

A5. Impact on Small Businesses

Some Fatherhood FIRE grantee organizations conducting local evaluations are small nonprofit organizations. Grantees may contract with local evaluators affiliated with small organizations and task the local evaluator to provide information requested in the Evaluation Plan Template. The Evaluation Plan Template is designed to minimize burden on these entities by standardizing the collection of the information and allowing electronic submission of the completed template.

A6. Consequences of Less Frequent Collection

This is a one-time data collection with the option to update.

A7. Now subsumed under 2(b) above and 10 (below)

A8. Consultation

Federal Register Notice and Comments

In accordance with the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (Pub. L. 104-13) and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) regulations at 5 CFR Part 1320 (60 FR 44978, August 29, 1995), ACF published a notice in the Federal Register announcing the agency’s intention to request an OMB review of the overarching generic clearance for formative information collection. This notice was published on October 11, 2017, Volume 82, Number 195, page 47212, and provided a sixty-day period for public comment. A subsequent notice, updated with more specific information, was published on June 18, 2019, Volume 84, Number 117, page 28307, and provided a thirty-day period for public comment. During the notice and comment periods, no substantive comments were received.

Consultation with Experts Outside of the Study

ACF consulted the evaluation TA contractor, MDRC and MEF Associates, to prepare the Evaluation Plan Template according to best practices described under A2 in Study Design.

A9. Tokens of Appreciation

No tokens of appreciation will be provided.

A10. Privacy: Procedures to protect privacy of information, while maximizing data sharing

Personally Identifiable Information

This information request will not collect personally identifiable information (PII).

Assurances of Privacy

No PII and no sensitive information will be collected. Respondents will be informed of all uses of the information provided and the information will be shared only between the evaluation TA contractor and ACF.

Data Security and Monitoring

Grantees will submit their completed Evaluation Plan Template electronically to the evaluation TA team. Completed templates will be transferred, stored, and accessed on MDRC systems that adhere to data security standards described below. The plans are intended to document evaluation processes for planning purposes only; they will not be published or disseminated.

MDRC’s security procedures include the following:

1. Access to information on a need-to-know basis, supported by multi-factor authentication factors

2. End-to-end encryption, in-transit and at-rest, using TLS 1.2+ and AES256 via FIPS 140-2 modules for systems integrity, systems and communications protection, and media protection

3. Continuous monitoring of application and transport-level traffic for inbound and outbound flows

These are supplemented by 1) employee nondisclosure agreements and annual data security training, 2) IT support teams well-versed in cyber security, and 3) policies for responding to data security incidents.

A11. Sensitive Information ²

No sensitive information will be collected.

A12. Burden

Explanation of Burden Estimates

Estimated burden for the data collection covered by this clearance request is 980 hours. We assume 42 grantee respondents will be involved in the initial information collection, and 39 grantees will be involved in providing annual updates and response rate updates. Annually, we estimate it will take each grantee respondent up to 8 hours to complete the Evaluation Plan Template, 4 hours to make annual updates, and 15 minutes to report response rate updates per month or 3 hours per year. 

Estimated hourly costs to respondents are based on the average hourly wage of social and community service managers of $35.69, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics National Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates (U.S. Department of Labor, May 2022; https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes119151.htm).

Estimated Total Burden and Cost to Respondents 

Instrument	No. of Respondents (total over request period)	No. of Responses per Respondent (total over request period)	Avg. Burden per Response (in hours)	Total Burden (in hours)	Average Hourly Wage Rate	Total Annual Respondent Cost
Evaluation Plan Template	42	1	8	336	$35.69	$3,997.28
Annual updates	39	3	4	468	$35.69	$16,702.92
Response rate updates	39	18	.25	176	$35.69	$6,281.44
Total				980		$26981.64

A13. Costs

There are no additional costs to respondents.

A14. Estimated Total Costs to the Federal Government

Cost Category	Estimated Costs
Field Work (technical assistance)	$162,452.93
Publications/Dissemination	0
Total costs over the request period	$162,452.93

A15. Reasons for changes in burden

This is a new individual information collection under the umbrella formative generic clearance for Research and Evaluation (0970-0356).

A16. Timeline

Activity	Time Period*
Grantees complete and submit evaluation plan template	January - February 2021
Evaluation TA contractor reviews submitted evaluation plan templates	February – September 2025
Grantee revises and/or clarifies information in the evaluation plan template	February – September 2025
ACF approves grantee evaluation plan	April 2021 – September 2025

*Start dates for use of templates is dependent on OMB approval if this generic information collection request.

A17. Exceptions

No exceptions are necessary for this information collection.

Attachments

Instrument – Evaluation Plan Template

1 The Office of Family Assistance (OFA), within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), in the Department of Health and Human Services awarded Fatherhood Family-focused, Interconnected, Resilient, and Essential (Fatherhood FIRE) demonstration grants to support responsible fatherhood promotion activities as authorized under 42 U.S.C. § 603(a)(2).

2 Examples of sensitive topics include (but not limited to): social security number; sex behavior and attitudes; illegal, anti-social, self-incriminating and demeaning behavior; critical appraisals of other individuals with whom respondents have close relationships, e.g., family, pupil-teacher, employee-supervisor; mental and psychological problems potentially embarrassing to respondents; religion and indicators of religion; community activities which indicate political affiliation and attitudes; legally recognized privileged and analogous relationships, such as those of lawyers, physicians and ministers; records describing how an individual exercises rights guaranteed by the First Amendment; receipt of economic assistance from the government (e.g., unemployment or WIC or SNAP); immigration/citizenship status.

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