Appendix C Recruitment email from study team

Appendix C.
State TANF/Child Support Director Recruitment Email

OMB Control No: XXXX-XXXX

Expiration date: X/X/20XX

Subject: Request for participation in study of [TANF/child support] program adaptations in response to COVID-19

Dear [Director of State TANF/Child Support Program],

The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) in the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, invites you to participate in a study on how TANF and child support programs adapted to the pandemic and which changes are being sustained during the pandemic and beyond. This study, TANF and Child Support Moving Forward: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Pandemic, is being conducted by Mathematica and MEF Associates, in partnership with OPRE. More information about the study can be found in the attached project description.

As part of this study, we are collecting information from 20 state [child support/TANF] programs to learn more about COVID-19 related programmatic adaptations that have been sustained up to the present. Your state was selected for inclusion in this study because of the approaches that your state has been implementing in response to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 Pandemic. We are asking you to complete a brief web-based questionnaire about the changes your agency may have made in response to the pandemic and the changes you plan to sustain for the foreseeable future. A link to the questionnaire is below (also attached). It is expected that you will need no more than 20 minutes to complete the questionnaire. Please feel free to work with your staff to complete the questionnaire. Following your completion of the questionnaire, we will contact you to schedule an additional one-hour telephone or virtual interview with you and designated staff of your choosing to learn more about your experiences.

In a subset of states, we would like to identify local [child support/TANF] offices for additional data collection activities. In the web-based questionnaire, we ask for your suggestions regarding which local offices to select in your state for this purpose. If your state is selected for local office interviews, we will contact the local offices you recommend and ask for their participation in this study. If they agree, we will conduct a one-hour interview with the local director of the program and any additional staff of the director’s choosing. We will ask them about their experiences implementing pandemic-related programmatic changes. We may also ask the local office to identify a small group of customers who we can interview to learn about their experiences with the pandemic-related changes.

Your state’s participation in this study is extremely valuable and will help advance knowledge about how states adapted to challenges prompted by the pandemic. The findings of this study will offer lessons that can inform [TANF/child support] program operations and service delivery during the pandemic and beyond. Your participation in this study is voluntary and there are no known risks to your participation. You may skip any question, and you may stop completing the questionnaire at any time. There are no penalties for refusal to participate in part or all of this study.

If you have any questions or comments about the study, please contact the OPRE Project Officer, Lisa Zingman at lisa.zingman@acf.gov. You may also contact the study’s Project Director, Rebekah Selekman, at 609-945-6598 or rselekman@mathematica-mpr.com.

Thank you in advance for your willingness to participate in this important study. We look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

[Study Team]