81 FR 24817 - Proposed Information Collection Activity; Comment Request

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Administration for Children and Families

Federal Register Volume 81, Issue 81 (April 27, 2016)

[Federal Register Volume 81, Number 81 (Wednesday, April 27, 2016)]
[Notices]
[Pages 24817-24818]
From the Federal Register Online  [www.thefederalregister.org]
[FR Doc No: 2016-09803]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Administration for Children and Families


Proposed Information Collection Activity; Comment Request

    Proposed Projects:
    Title: Child Support Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration 
(CSPED).
    OMB No.: 0970-439.
    Description: The Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) within 
the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) seeks an extension 
without change for an existing data collection called the Child Support 
Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration (CSPED) through September 
30, 2018 (OMB no. 0970-439; expiration date September 30, 2016). OCSE 
is proposing that this information collection be extended to continue 
using 8 of the 10 currently approved information collection instruments 
with a reduction in burden hours to reflect only the extension period, 
estimated to be two years and three months, from July 1, 2016 to 
September 30, 2018.
    In October 2012, OCSE issued grants to eight state child support 
agencies to provide employment, parenting, and child support services 
to noncustodial parents who are having difficulty meeting their child 
support obligation. The overall objective of the CSPED evaluation is to 
document and evaluate the effectiveness of the approaches taken by 
these eight CSPED grantees. This evaluation will yield information 
about effective strategies for improving child support payments by 
providing noncustodial parents employment and other services through 
child support programs. It will generate extensive information on how 
these programs operated, what they cost, the effects the programs had, 
and whether the benefits of the programs exceed their costs. The 
information gathered will be critical to informing decisions related to 
future investments in child support-led employment-focused programs for 
noncustodial parents who have difficulty meeting their child support 
obligations.
    The CSPED evaluation includes the following two interconnected 
components or ``studies'':
    1. Implementation and Cost Study. The goal of the implementation 
and cost study is to provide a detailed description of the programs--
how they are implemented, their participants, the contexts in which 
they are operated, their promising practices, and their costs. The 
detailed descriptions will assist in interpreting program impacts, 
identifying program features and conditions necessary for effective 
program replication or improvement, and carefully documenting the costs 
of delivering these services. Key activities of the implementation and 
cost study include: (1) Conducting semi-structured interviews with 
program staff and selected community partner organizations to gather 
information on program implementation and costs; (2) conducting focus 
groups with program participants to elicit participation experiences; 
(3) administering a web-based survey to program staff and community 
partners to capture broader staff program experiences; and (4) 
collecting data on study participant service use, dosage, and duration 
of enrollment throughout the demonstration using a web-based Management 
Information System (MIS).
    2. Impact Study. The goal of the impact study is to provide 
rigorous estimates of the effectiveness of the eight programs using an 
experimental research design. Program applicants who are eligible for 
CSPED services are randomly assigned to either a program group that is 
offered program services or a control group that is not. The study MIS 
that documents service use for the implementation study is also used by 
grantee staff to conduct random assignment for the impact study. The 
impact study relies on data from surveys of participants, as well as 
administrative records from state and county data systems. Survey data 
are collected twice from program applicants. Baseline information is 
collected from all noncustodial parents who apply for the program prior 
to random assignment. A follow-up survey is collected from sample 
members twelve months after random assignment. A wide range of measures 
are collected through surveys, including measures of employment 
stability and quality, barriers to employment, parenting and co-
parenting, and demographic and socio-economic characteristics. In 
addition, data on child support obligations and payments, Temporary 
Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Supplemental Nutrition 
Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, Medicaid receipt, involvement with 
the criminal justice system, and earnings and benefit data collected 
through the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system are obtained from state 
and county databases.
    Two components of the data collection have been completed: (1) 
Focus groups with program participants; and (2) the web-based survey to 
document program staff and partner experiences. The following data 
collection activities are not yet complete: (1) The staff interview 
topic guide; (2) the study MIS functions for tracking participation in 
the program; (3) the introductory script which program staff use to 
introduce the study to participants; (4) the introductory script heard 
by program applicants; (5) the baseline survey; (6) the study MIS 
functions for conducting random assignment; (7) the protocol for 
collecting child support, benefit, earnings, and criminal justice data 
from state and county administrative data systems; and (8) the 12-month 
follow-up survey. As of January 1, 2016, 8,060 participants have been 
enrolled and completed the baseline survey and over 2,300 participants 
have completed the 12-month follow-up survey.

Respondents

    Respondents to these activities include program applicants, study 
participants, grantee staff and community partners, as well as state 
and county staff responsible for extracting data from government 
databases for the evaluation. Specific respondents per instrument are 
noted in the burden tables below.

Annual Burden Estimates

    The following instruments are proposed for public comment under 
this 60-Day Federal Register Notice. The following table provides the 
burden

[[Page 24818]]

estimates for the implementation and cost study and the impact study 
components of the current request. The requested extension period is 
estimated to be two years and three months, from July 1, 2016 to 
September 30, 2018. Thus, burden hours for all components are 
annualized over two years and three months.

                                          Implementation and Cost Study
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                   Total  number     Number of        Average                      Total annual
           Instrument                   of         responses per   burden hours    Total  burden   burden hours
                                    respondents     respondent     per response        hours            \a\
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Staff interview topic guide.....             120               1               1             120              53
Study MIS to track program                   200          468.75          0.0333           3,125           1,390
 participation..................
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                  Impact Study
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Introductory script:
    Grantee staff...............             120               9          0.1667             180              80
    Program applicants \b\......           1,050               1          0.1667             175              78
Baseline survey.................           1,000               1          0.5833             583             259
Study MIS to conduct random                  120               9          0.1667             180              80
 assignment.....................
Protocol for collecting                       32               1               8             256             114
 administrative records.........
12 month follow-up survey.......           1,476               1            0.75           1,107             492
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\a\ All burden estimates are annualized over 2.25 years.
\b\ Five percent of program applicants are not expected to agree to participate in the study; thus there are 5%
  more program applicants than study participants.

    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 2,546.
    In compliance with the requirements of Section 506(c)(2)(A) of the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Administration for Children and 
Families is soliciting public comment on the specific aspects of the 
information collection described above. Copies of the proposed 
collection of information can be obtained and comments may be forwarded 
by writing to the Administration for Children and Families, Office of 
Planning, Research and Evaluation, 330 C Street SW., Washington, DC 
20201. Attn: ACF Reports Clearance Officer. Email address: 
[email protected]. All requests should be identified by the 
title of the information collection.
    The Department specifically requests comments on: (a) Whether the 
proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper 
performance of the functions of the agency, including whether the 
information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the 
agency's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of 
information; (c) the quality, utility, and clarity of the information 
to be collected; and (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection 
of information on respondents, including through the use of automated 
collection techniques or other forms of information technology. 
Consideration will be given to comments and suggestions submitted 
within 60 days of this publication.

Robert Sargis,
Reports Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 2016-09803 Filed 4-26-16; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 4184-01-P