TANF and Child Support Moving Forward: Further Incorporating Family Input

OMB Control #0970-0531

Expiration Date 09/30/2025

TANF and Child Support Moving Forward: Further Incorporating Family Input

Implementation Team Interview Guide

Introductory Statement and Consent

Thank you so much for talking with me today. My name is __________ and my colleague, ____________, is on the call as well. I am with an organization called [Mathematica/MEF Associates]. We are assisting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in understanding how programs use family input for program improvement and learning about your experience using the Family Input Resources. For context, when we say Family Input Resources, we are referring to the collection of guidance, tools, and resources that the study team provided to engage families and improve their experience in your program. We are especially interested in learning about your use of the Family Input Resources over the last six months. The goal of this discussion is to learn about your team’s successes and challenges engaging families in your program improvement effort. We also want to understand your experience using the resources, which will inform how we revise and improve the resources.

Our conversation will take about one hour. Your participation in this discussion is voluntary. You may choose not to answer any question you do not want to answer, and you may end the interview at any time. [INTERVIEWER: IF THERE IS MORE THAN ONE RESPONDENT IN THE INTERVIEW: We ask that you keep each other’s responses private.] Your individual responses will be kept private. We will produce a report based on the findings from these conversations in which we may identify your program as a contributor to the study, but we will not include the names of individual respondents in any reporting.

According to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, an agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a valid OMB control number. The valid OMB control number for this information collection is 0970-0531 and the expiration date is 09/30/2025.

Do you have any questions before we get started?

Is it alright if we record this conversation? The recording will not be shared with anyone outside our research team. Once we finalize our notes, we will delete the recording.[INTERVIEWER: press record in the WebEx and ask, “To document consent for our records, do you give your permission for me to begin the interview and start recording at this time?”]

[INTERVIEWER: IF THERE IS MORE THAN ONE RESPONDENT IN THE INTERVIEW, WAIT FOR CONFIRMATION FROM ALL RESPONDENTS BEFORE PROCEEDING.]

[INTERVIEWER: specify your name, the respondents’ first names, date, and program name]

Interview Questions

Family engagement in program improvement processes

We would like to start by understanding how your program engaged families in program improvement activities over the last six months.

1. What program change did you want family input on? Why did you want to involve families in this change?

   • What were you intending to achieve with this program change?

2. How did you intend to involve families in that program change?

   • How did you involve families? If that was different from what you intended, why did you involve families differently than how you planned?

3. Think for a moment about the context in which your program operates. How do you think your program’s culture influenced your approach to engaging families in the program improvement process?

   • Now think more broadly to your community and its culture or cultures. How do you think your local community and culture or cultures influenced your approach?

4. What, if anything, was challenging or acted as a roadblock in preparing for or involving families in your program improvement effort?

   • How did you overcome or address those challenges?

5. What if anything, helped you prepare for or include families in your program improvement effort?

   • What facilitated your success? (probe for leadership, organizational culture, past experience, etc.)

6. How did families respond to your efforts to engage them in [your program improvement process]? Why do you think they responded in that way (probe for reasons related to trust, communication, past experience, etc.)?

7. How did you use feedback from families? How did their feedback influence any program changes, if at all?

   • (If relevant) Have you let families know how you used their feedback? If so, how and what did you share with them?

Use of resources to engage families and improve programs

Now we would like to focus on the Family Input Resources, specifically, and discuss how your program used the resources, tools, and guidance to engage families in your program improvement work. [Interviewers who are familiar with pilot site may ask specific probes based on their knowledge.]

8. How has your program used the Family Input Resources over the last six months?

   • [If unsure, interviewer should probe by sharing the tools or resources the site used. If respondent is still unsure, skip to final section.]

9. What resources were particularly helpful?

• Why were those resources helpful?

10. Which resources were less helpful to your implementation team and program?

• Why were those resources less helpful?

Usability and perception of resources

Now we would like to ask you a few questions about the extent to which you found the resources actionable, relevant, and valuable to your program improvement work.

11. Thinking broadly about the resources, how easy or difficult has it been for you to use them to plan for and engage families in your program improvement process?

• What would make the resources more actionable, from your perspective? For example: their organization, the tone of writing.

• Did you customize the resources at all to meet your needs? How so?

12. Were the resources relevant to your program improvement work? Why or why not?

13. What did you value most about the resources, if anything? Why?

• What did you value the least about the resources? Why?

Conclusion

Let’s wrap up now with a question about where your program is headed next.

14. What are your plans for the next six months related to family input and program improvement?

15. Is there anything else about the Family Input Resources that we have not talked about, but you think we should know?

16. Is there anything else about your efforts to improve your program or engage families in that process you think we should know?

Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate all that you have shared.

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