SSA - Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services Outcome Measurement Listening Session

Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services

Outcome Measurement Listening Session

Formative Data Collections for Program Support

0970 – 0531

Supporting Statement

Part A - Justification

August 2024

Submitted By:

Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services

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

A1. Necessity for the Data Collection

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) seeks approval for the Office of Family Violence Prevention and Services (OFVPS) to solicit feedback during three virtual listening sessions to inform updates to outcome measures included on Performance Progress Reports (PPR) and to understand training and technical assistance needs.

Background

MITRE, as an operator of the Health Federally Funded Research and Development Center (Health FFRDC), is tasked with providing recommendations on updating outcome measures and identifying associated training and technical assistance (TA) needs for OFVPS grantees. These grant recipients obtain funding through legislation and congressional appropriations annually. Data on use of funding and grant recipient performance is required and used in a variety of ways, such as to inform congressional reports and inquiries, service decisions, programming and support to grantees, and development of fact sheets and other resources.

As part of the PPR data collection process, grant recipients typically report data on survivor centered outcomes. In the context of domestic violence programs, outcomes refer to measurable changes in knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors, expectations, or life circumstances that occur as a result of a program, and are often categorized as short-term, intermediate, and long-term (Sullivan, 2011; CDC, 2012; Sullivan and Alexy, 2001). While important for the evaluation of domestic violence programs, selecting and measuring appropriate program outcomes is challenging due to multiple factors, such as time, money, resources, survivor contexts, life experiences, and needs, the breadth of services provided by domestic violence programs, survivor participation in programs at varying lengths of time, and the fact that domestic violence programs work with victims of someone else’s behavior, as opposed to traditional program outcomes that focus on one’s own behavior (Lyon et. al, 2016; Sullivan, 2011).  In consideration of such factors, there are two outcomes that have been found to resonate with survivors, regardless of the rendered service or how short-term the service may have been, which include: 1) survivors will increase knowledge about available community resources and 2) survivors will have strategies for enhancing their safety (Sullivan, 2011). To further demonstrate the results and impact of FVPSA-funded domestic violence programs, grant recipients are required to collect and report data specific to these two outcomes. 

As the current outcome measures have been in place for more than a decade, OFVPS has an interest in updating them and their accompanying guidance to ensure that grantees are well placed to document the outcomes of their work in ways that reflect the full value of their services and the full diversity of the populations they serve.

Legal or Administrative Requirements that Necessitate the Collection

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

A2. Purpose of Survey and Data Collection Procedures

Overview of Purpose and Use

MITRE will hold up to three listening sessions with training and technical assistance (T/TA) providers for OFVPS grant recipients – which include domestic violence/sexual assault programs, culturally specific organizations, states/territories, and tribes/tribal organizations – to understand current practices, challenges and potential improvements to outcome measurement. Through the listening sessions, MITRE will 1) develop recommendations for updating FVPSA outcome measurement guidance and T/TA, 2) develop an outcome measurement tool with T/TA providers for future use, and 3) develop recommendations for how program outcomes may be reported as part of the FVPSA PPR for states, tribes, and coalitions. A following effort will include validation of the tool.

This proposed information collection meets the following goals of ACF’s generic clearance for formative data collections for program support (0970-0531):

• Delivery of training or technical assistance (TA) related to program implementation or the development or refinement of program and grantee processes.

• Planning for provision of programmatic -related T/TA.

• Obtaining input on the development of program performance measures (PM) from grantees or experts in a relevant field

Processes for Information Collection

OFVPS has provided MITRE with a comprehensive list of resource centers to invite to participate in the listening sessions. The sampling plan will consist of the selection of up to 30 respondents across 19 resource centers (ideally no more than 10 participants per listening session and a maximum of 2 participants per resource center). MITRE will plan to hold additional sessions in the future to solicit feedback from the same group of respondents in order to validate a proposed new outcome measurement tool. This effort will inform the future validation efforts, including the development of a guided PowerPoint presentation for the validation sessions after the tool is drafted. Activities related to validation that are subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act will be submitted for review and approval once designed.

A3. Improved Information Technology to Reduce Burden

To conduct the listening sessions and reduce burden to FVPSA grant recipients, MITRE will hold listening sessions virtually using a platform such as Microsoft Teams or Zoom for Government and will recruit no more than two grant recipients from each resource center.

A4. Efforts to Identify Duplication

The information needed for this work is not already available elsewhere, as these outcome measures have not been updated in more than a decade and OFVPS has not undertaken any reassessment of these measures in the interim.

A5. Involvement of Small Organizations

All listening sessions will be conducted virtually to maximize participation. MITRE will schedule data collection at times convenient for respondents and will provide multiple options for scheduling with as much advance notice as possible. The sessions have been designed to be low burden and to last for not more than one hour.

A6. Consequences of Less Frequent Data Collection

This is a one-time data collection (i.e., respondent recommendations) with a plan to validate recommendations at a second engagement with the same participants.

A7. Special Circumstances

There are no special circumstances for the proposed data collection efforts.

A8. Federal Register Notice and 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 this information collection request to extend approval of the umbrella generic with minor changes. The notice was published on January 28, 2022, (87 FR 4603), and provided a sixty-day period for public comment. ACF did not receive any comments on the first notice. A second notice was published, allowing a thirty-day period for public comment, in conjunction with submission of the request to OMB. ACF did not receive any comments on the second notice.

Consultation with Outside Experts

To date, MITRE has consulted four outside experts in the field of outcome measurement, domestic violence programming, and program evaluation.

A9. Tokens of Appreciation for Respondents

No tokens of appreciation for respondents are proposed for this information collection.

A10. Privacy of Respondents

Personally identifiable information collected will be only “business card information”, i.e., respondents’ first and last names, email addresses, and institutional affiliations for registration to participate. Information collected will be kept private to the extent permitted by law. Respondents will be informed of all planned uses of data, that their participation is voluntary, and that their information will be kept private. All data collected from respondents will be stored on a secure MITRE server and de-identified in any deliverables submitted to ACF.

A11. Sensitive Questions

There are no sensitive questions in this data collection.

A12. Estimation of Information Collection Burden

Burden Estimates

MITRE will recruit up to 30 respondents across 19 resource centers. The goal is to have no more than 10 participants at each listening session with 1-2 representatives from each resource center. Sessions will take no more than 1.5 hours.

Cost Estimates

The cost to respondents was calculated using the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) job code for Social and Human Services Assistants [21-1093] and wage data from May 2023, which is $21.27 per hour. To account for fringe benefits and overhead the rate was multiplied by two, which is $42.54. The estimate of annualized cost to respondents for a 1.5-hour burden is $42.54 times 90 hours or $1,914.30.  https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_stru.htm 

Instrument	Total Number of Respondents	Total Number of Responses Per Respondent	Average Burden Hours Per Response	Total Burden Hours	Average Hourly Wage	Total Annual Cost
OFVPS Virtual Listening Session	30	1	1.5	45	$42.54	$ 1,914.30

A13. Cost Burden to Respondents or Record Keepers

There are no additional costs to respondents.

A14. Estimate of Cost to the Federal Government

The total cost for the data collection activities under this current request will be $3,828.60

A15. Change in Burden

This is for an individual information collection under the umbrella formative generic clearance for program support (0970-0531).

A16. Plan and Time Schedule for Information Collection, Tabulation and Publication

The goal is to start listening sessions in mid-to-late September, pending OMB approval. The three listening sessions will take place over about 3-4 weeks. MITRE will synthesize the findings and recommendations in a draft report for ACF in Fall 2024. Validation sessions with resource centers are tentatively planned for November, dependent on initial efforts and additional OMB approval. A final internal report synthesizing results from all efforts is currently planned for early 2025.

A17. Reasons Not to Display OMB Expiration Date

All instruments will display the expiration date for OMB approval.

A18. Exceptions to Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions

No exceptions are necessary for this information collection.

Attachments

OFVPS Outcome Measurement Listening Session Guide

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