Multi-Site Study of State-Tribal Collaboration in Home Visiting

DRAFT

MUSE-STC Qualitative Interview Guide

Thank you for taking part in today’s interview about how various entities come together to support the delivery of MIECHV funded home visiting services to American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) families. As you know from the informed consent we just completed, the goal of these interviews is to explore how states and other eligible entities are reaching AIAN families with State MIECHV funding from HRSA. The information will be used to inform HRSA’s policy guidance and technical assistance. We anticipate that this interview will take between up to 90 minutes to complete. Your participation is voluntary and you can decide not to participate at any point. The information you provide will be kept private. We also want to make sure you are aware of the following:

“A Federal agency may not conduct or sponsor, and no individual or entity is required to respond to, nor shall an individual or entity be subject to a penalty for failure to comply with a collection of information subject to the requirements of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, unless that collection of information displays a currently valid OMB Control Number The OMB # is 0970-0531 and the expiration date is X/XX/202X. ”

We appreciate your insights into the planning and implementing of this partnership.

Do you have any questions before we begin? Okay, let’s get started.

As you know, States and Tribes work together in many ways to deliver MIECHV funded home visiting services to American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) families. The first few questions ask about how this work is organized in your area.

1. For this study, we are calling the coming together of people and agencies to deliver MIECHV funded home visiting services to AIAN families partnerships, but that may not be the right way to think about how this work is done in your community. How would you describe your working group? (Probe: would you call it a partnership, collaboration or something else, why?)

2. For this study, we would like to get an idea of all the members of your [local term]. What are all the agencies, groups or individuals that work together on this [substitute local term for partnership]?

1. What brought you all together to do this work? (Probe: had this group worked together before this partnership?)

2. What made you first realize that you all were a [local term]?

3. How would you describe your agency’s role in planning and implementing MIECHV funded home visiting services to AIAN families?

4. How would you describe your own involvement in State-Tribal home visiting?

1. How did you get involved?

2. What are your specific roles and responsibilities?

3. Can you please tell me about the person from a partnering agency with whom you collaborate most in this work and what you work on together?

5. After you realized that people and agencies were coming together to do this work, what did you hope would happen?

1. Beyond what you hoped for, how did you expect the work to go?

2. In what ways has the work met those expectations?

3. How has the work not met your expectations?

4. How have your expectations for the [local term] changed over time?

6. Can you tell me about any parts of the planning phase for this [local term] you know about?

1. Which agencies have participated in MIECHV needs assessment(s), and what did their involvement entail?

2. If you know, how was the specific home visiting model used by the local agency selected? (Probe: what were the major considerations and priorities during the selection process?)

These next couple of questions are about how the entities you described above work together?

7. To what degree do the partnering members share similar values and vision? (Probe: In what ways do their values and vision related to the project differ?)

8. In what ways do the organizations and individuals engaged in this work collaborate well together? How do they support one another, build trust, share resources, assist in training? (Probe: Can you provide me with an example in which collaboration is particularly strong? Or, examples of when you had hoped for more support? What was happening at the time?)

9. What challenges or barriers have you all experienced?

1. How have these challenges been addressed?

2. What have you learned as you worked through the challenge together?

10. How has the COVID-19 pandemic effected the work you do together?

1. How has your communication changed as a result of the pandemic?

2. How has the focus of the work you do together changed as a result of COVID-19 (e.g. shifted to thinking through technological needs)?

11. When people work together on something it often requires everyone to make some kind of concessions. What compromises or negotiations have partners made in the interest of the [local term]?

12. What are some of the key accomplishments of the State-Tribal collaboration to date?

13. What advice or recommendations do you have to strengthen the [local term]?

1. What could be done to strengthen collaboration between the State and Tribal governments?

2. What could [Model developer] be doing to strengthen the [local term]?

3. What could be done to strengthen collaboration interpersonally, between the individuals who working together?

4. Are there any entities that are not currently involved in the partnership but you think should be involved? If yes: Which ones and what would they contribute to the [local term]? How could they best be involved?

14. What advice or recommendations do you have for other awardees trying to improve or enhance the way they collaborate with Tribal entities to deliver home visiting services to AIAN families? What about for local program leadership?

These next couple of questions are about how the work you do across entities is structured.

15. What keeps this [local term] together? (Probe: if your [local term] has experienced turn-over of partners, what was the impact and how was it managed?)

1. Can you tell me about any instances where a partnering agency has left the [local term], and how that was handled?

16. How would you describe the leadership structure of this [local term]?

1. How effective is your current leadership in terms of getting things done?

2. How could the leadership be improved?

17. How are Tribal governing bodies involved with this partnership?

1. Who is responsible for liaising between the program and these governing agencies?

1. How is this person supported? What additional supports could enhance their work?

2. How has this liaison work been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic?

18. How are decisions made for the partnership?

1. How are these decisions typically communicated to members of the [local term]? (Probe: What structures have been put in place to support communication across the [local term]? What would you change about the way decisions are communicated within the [local term]?)

2. How have these decisions impacted how home visiting services are being implemented or delivered to AIAN families?

3. How much power do individual partners have to make decisions about the way home visiting services are delivered to AIAN families? (Probe: How has this changed over time?)

4. What would you change about how decisions are made about this work?

19. Within your own agency or organization, how are decisions about the [local term] usually made?

1. To what extent do individuals within your own agency or organization feel that they can make decisions about how services are delivered to AIAN families through State MIECHV funds? (Probe: Why? How has this changed over time?)

2. What would you change about how decisions are made about the work conducted through the [local term] or within your own agency or organization?

20. Of the partnering agencies, which are responsible for community outreach?

1. How do families hear about available services?

2. How do partnering agencies learn about what families experience during home visiting?

21. How has the [local term] structure changed over time? (Probe: how have the partners changed? Any agency-wide shifts that have affected the structure?)

Now I would like to ask some questions about the impacts of this work and what makes it easier or harder to achieve these impacts.

22. How do you think the work you do as part of the collaboration we have been discussing impacts AIAN families receiving home visiting services through the state MIECHV award?

23. How have the following factors helped or hindered your [local term] in achieving these impacts? (Probe: how these factors impacted the [local term] itself?)

1. Grant requirements such as needs assessments, performance measures and CQI?

2. How funding is allocated and managed? (Probe: by your agency, by the awardee)

3. Timelines and expectations required by the State? Timelines and expectations required by other entities?

4. Flexibility or lack of flexibility on the part of model developers?

5. How the home visiting project is staffed? (e.g., are people with appropriate knowledge and skills/training assigned the right roles and levels of FTE?)

6. Other factors?

These few final questions are going to ask about the future of the partnership.

24. How do you see this [local term] moving into the future? (Probe: how long do you think this group of agencies will continue to work together? What would make you all stop doing this work?)

25. What will enable the [local term] to make progress in the future?

26. What might prevent the [local term] from making progress in the future?

27. Who else would you recommend we speak with to better understand the State-Tribal MIECHV partnership?

28. Any other thoughts and experiences you would like to share?

Thank you for spending this time with me and sharing the value of your experience.

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