Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 36 / Thursday, February 25, 2021 / Notices 11543 

related cases. Findings will be 

distributed via the APS–TARC website, 

a technical assistance resource center 

for APS programs. ACL will also explore 

other opportunities where findings can 

be shared via blogs, briefs, conference 

presentations and webinars. 

Comments in Response to the 60-Day 

Federal Register Notice 

ACL published a 60-day Federal 

Register Notice in the Federal Register 

soliciting public comments on this 

request. The 60-day FRN published on 

December 1, 2020, Vol. 85, No. 231 page 

77217. There were no public comments 

received. 

ESTIMATED ANNUALIZED BURDEN HOURS

Form name Number of 

respondents 

Number of 

responses per 

respondent 

Total 

responses 

Average 

burden 

per response 

(in hours) 

Total burden 

hours 

APS Administrator Interview Guide ..................................... 12 1 12 .75 9 

APS Local Staff Interview Guide ......................................... 60 1 60 .75 45 

Total .............................................................................. ........................ ........................ ........................ ........................ 54 

Dated: February 19, 2021. 

Alison Barkoff, 

Acting Administrator and Assistant Secretary 

for Aging. 

[FR Doc. 2021–03867 Filed 2–24–21; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4154–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

Administration for Community Living 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities; Submission for OMB 

Review; Public Comment Request; 

Inventory of Adult Protective Services 

Practices and Service Innovations 

AGENCY: Administration for Community 

Living, HHS. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The Administration for 

Community Living is announcing that 

the proposed collection of information 

listed above has been submitted to the 

Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) for review and clearance as 

required under section 506(c)(2)(A) of 

the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. 

This 30-Day notice collects comments 

on the information collection 

requirements related to requirements 

related to a new information collection 

0985-New Inventory of Adult Protective 

Services Practices and Service 

Innovations. 

DATES: Submit written comments on the 

collection of information by March 29, 

2021. 

ADDRESSES: Submit written comments 

and recommendations for the proposed 

information collection within 30 days of 

publication of this notice to 

www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. 

Find the information collection by 

selecting ‘‘Currently under 30-day 

Review—Open for Public Comments’’ or 

by using the search function. By mail to 

the Office of Information and Regulatory 

Affairs, OMB, New Executive Office 

Bldg., 725 17th St. NW, Rm. 10235, 

Washington, DC 20503, Attn: OMB Desk 

Officer for ACL. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Stephanie Whittier Eliason, 

Administration for Community Living, 

Washington, DC 20201 Phone: (202) 

795–7467, Email: 

Stephanie.WhittierEliason@acl.hhs.gov. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In 

compliance with 44 U.S.C. 3507, ACL 

has submitted the following proposed 

collection of information to OMB for 

review and clearance. The 

Administration for Community Living 

(ACL) is requesting approval for a new 

information collection 0985–New 

Inventory of Adult Protective Services 

Practices and Service Innovations. The 

Elder Justice Act of 2009 requires the 

Secretary of the U.S. Department of 

Health and Human Services to carry out 

a number of activities related to adult 

protective services (APS) (42 U.S.C. 

1397m–1), including developing and 

disseminating information on APS best 

practices and conducting research 

related to the provision of APS. 

Furthermore, the Elder Justice 

Coordinating Council included as its 

third recommendation for increasing 

federal involvement in addressing elder 

abuse, neglect, and exploitation: 

‘‘develop a national APS system based 

upon standardized data collection and a 

core set of service provision standards 

and best practices.’’ 

Background 

The Administration for Community 

Living (ACL) in the U.S. Department of 

Health and Human Services (HHS) 

plans to initiate an Inventory of Adult 

Protective Services Practices and 

Service Innovations (APS Practice 

Survey) in early 2021. Under a contract 

with ACL, the National Adult Protective 

Services Technical Assistance Resource 

Center (APS TARC) is conducting a 

national program evaluation of APS 

programs. As part of this evaluation, the 

APS Practice Survey will identify 

barriers to meeting policy mandates, 

and practice innovations and model 

programs that address such barriers and 

community-identified needs. It also 

seeks to identify practice variations in 

the way APS programs serve older 

adults and adults with disabilities. The 

results of the survey will serve to 

advance the field of APS and will be 

useful to many audiences. It will 

provide baseline information regarding 

the status of APS programs and services, 

and the resulting information will help 

states and territories compare their 

program characteristics with those of 

other states and territories. The survey 

will provide a context for other 

researchers examining APS programs. It 

will inform ACL’s efforts to support 

improvement of APS programs through 

activities such as innovation grants. 

Finally, it will inform the APS TARC 

team’s efforts to develop resources to 

enhance APS programs around the 

country. This survey has been 

developed to gather information on APS 

practices that is not available from other 

sources. As part of the National Adult 

Maltreatment Reporting System 

(NAMRS), ACL collects descriptive data 

on state and territory agency policies 

through the Agency Component of that 

data collection. 

Therefore, the proposed survey will 

not collect any background policy or 

data items. As part of the APS Program 

Evaluation, the APS TARC also 

conducted a detailed examination of 

state APS policies through development 

of individual state policy profiles. The 

profiles were based exclusively on 

extant information sources obtained 

without additional data requests from 

11544 Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 36 / Thursday, February 25, 2021 / Notices 

the states. Information on practices 

gathered in this survey will 

complement, but will not duplicate, 

these policy profiles. 

Finally, the National Adult Protective 

Services Association (NAPSA) 

conducted a survey of State APS 

programs in 2012, and the National 

Association of State Units on Aging and 

Disability (NASUAD) fielded a survey to 

its members, which are not APS 

programs, in January 2018 intended to 

update findings from the NAPSA 2012 

survey. Since the survey replicates the 

original NAPSA survey, the questions in 

it are not focused on APS practice and 

are not directed at the same respondents 

as the proposed survey. As noted, a few 

topics in the original survey overlap 

with the proposed instrument, but the 

wording and focus of the few questions 

on similar topics are different. From this 

analysis, we conclude the proposed APS 

Practice Survey will yield vital 

information on APS practice not 

available from other sources. 

Proposed Collection Efforts 

The APS Practice Survey will collect 

state- and territory-specific practices for 

all aspects of APS casework practice, 

including staffing, intake, investigation, 

service planning and delivery, and 

quality assurance. Across these areas, 

the survey will collect information on 

practices such as community 

partnerships and use of assessment 

tools. 

The APS Practice Survey will be 

administered online using 

SurveyMonkey or a similar commercial 

survey-programming tool. The online 

survey will include data validation 

routines to minimize errors or 

unintentional omissions and will 

include appropriate skip patterns to 

reduce burden. Respondents will be 

state and territory APS agencies, 

including APS agencies in the District of 

Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, Northern 

Marianas Islands, Virgin Islands, and 

American Samoa. No personally 

identifiable information will be 

collected. 

A pilot version of The APS Practice 

Survey was tested in nine (9) diverse 

states between July and September 

2017. Following their pretest of the 

survey instrument, pilot respondents 

participated in focus groups in which 

they provided recommendations on data 

collection procedures, views on the 

availability of data being requested, and 

estimates of the burden to each state and 

territory for completion of the survey. It 

is assumed that nearly every state and 

territory will participate and that time to 

develop a response will be similar to the 

experience of states during the pilot test. 

ACL has calculated the following 

burden estimates based on the results of 

the survey pilot test. 

Comments in Response to the 60-Day 

Federal Register Notice 

A notice published in the Federal 

Register on December 1, 2020 in 85 FR 

77218. 

Estimated Program Burden: ACL 

estimates the annual burden associated 

with this collection of information as 

follows: 

Instrument Number of 

respondents 

Number of 

responses per 

respondent 

Average 

burden hours 

per response 

Total 

burden 

hours 

APS Practice Survey ....................................................................................... 56 1 3.50 196 

Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours ..................................................... ........................ ........................ ........................ 196 

Dated: February 19, 2021. 

Alison Barkoff, 

Acting Administrator and Assistant Secretary 

for Aging. 

[FR Doc. 2021–03863 Filed 2–24–21; 8:45 am] 

BILLING CODE 4154–01–P 

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND 

HUMAN SERVICES 

Administration for Community Living 

Agency Information Collection 

Activities; Submission for OMB 

Review; Public Comment Request; 

Independent Living Services (ILS) 

Program Performance Report (PPR) 

0985–0043 

AGENCY: Administration for Community 

Living, HHS. 

ACTION: Notice. 

SUMMARY: The Administration for 

Community Living (ACL) is announcing 

that the proposed collection of 

information listed above has been 

submitted to the Office of Management 

and Budget (OMB) for review and 

clearance as required under the 

Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. This 

30-Day notice collects comments on the 

information collection requirements 

related to the Independent Living 

Services (ILS) Program Performance 

Report (PPR) 0985–0043. 

DATES: Submit written comments on the 

collection of information by 11:59 p.m. 

(EST) or postmarked by March 29, 2021. 

ADDRESSES: Submit written comments 

on the collection of information by: 

(a) Email to: OIRA_submission@

omb.eop.gov, Attn: OMB Desk Officer 

for ACL; 

(b) fax to 202.395.5806, Attn: OMB 

Desk Officer for ACL; or 

(c) by mail to the Office of 

Information and Regulatory Affairs, 

OMB, New Executive Office Bldg., 725 

17th St. NW, Rm. 10235, Washington, 

DC 20503, Attn: OMB Desk Officer for 

ACL. 

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: 

Peter Nye at OILPPRAComments@

acl.hhs.gov. Administration for 

Community Living, Washington, DC 

20201, Attention: Peter Nye Phone: 

(202) 795–7606. 

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: In 

compliance with 44 U.S.C. 3507, ACL 

has submitted the following proposed 

collection of information to OMB for 

review and clearance. 

The Independent Living Services 

(ILS) program provides financial 

assistance, through formula grants, to 

states, the District of Columbia, Puerto 

Rico, American Samoa, the 

Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana 

Islands, Guam, and the US Virgin 

Islands for expanding, and improving 

the provision of, independent living (IL) 

services. The Designated State Entity 

(DSE) is the agency that, on behalf of the 

state, receives, accounts for, and 

disburses funds received under Part B of 

the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as 

amended (the Act). Funds are also made 

available for the provision of training 

and technical assistance to Statewide 

Independent Living Councils (SILCs). 

The Act permits an annual program 

performance report (PPR). 

This request is for the ILS PPR, which 

is submitted annually by the SILC and 

DSE in every state, territory, and 

commonwealth. ACL uses the ILS PPR 

to assess grantee compliance with title 

VII of the Act, with 45 CFR part 1329 

of the Code of Federal Regulations, and 

with applicable provisions of the HHS 

Regulations at 45 CFR part 75. The ILS