[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 38 (Monday, March 1, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 12006-12007]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-04162]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Administration for Children and Families


Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request; Healthy Marriage and 
Responsible Fatherhood Performance Measures and Additional Data 
Collection (New Collection)

AGENCY: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration 
for Children and Families, HHS.

ACTION: Request for public comment.

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SUMMARY: The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of 
Family Assistance (OFA) has had administrative responsibility for 
federal funding of programs that strengthen families through healthy 
marriage and relationship education and responsible fatherhood 
programming since 2006, through the Healthy Marriage (HM) and 
Responsible Fatherhood (RF) Grant Programs. ACF required the 2015 
cohort of HMRF grantees--which received 5-year grants in September 
2015--to collect and report performance measures about program 
operations, services, and clients served (OMB #0970-0460). A 
performance measures data collection system called nFORM (Information, 
Family Outcomes, Reporting, and Management) was implemented with the 
2015 cohort to improve the efficiency of data collection and reporting 
and the quality of data. This system allows for streamlined and 
standardized submission of grantee performance data through regular 
progress reports and supports grantee-led and federal research 
projects. ACF will continue performance measure and other data 
collection activities for the HMRF grant program with a new cohort of 
grantees who received 5-year awards in September 2020. ACF is 
requesting comment on a new data collection to support these activities 
with the 2020 HMRF grantee cohort. ACF has made changes to the previous 
cohort's data collection instruments and performance reports for use in 
the new cohort. This new grantee cohort is expected to begin collecting 
performance measure data and reporting to ACF in April 2021.

DATES: Comments due within 30 days of publication. OMB must make a 
decision about the collection of information between 30 and 60 days 
after publication of this document in the Federal Register. Therefore, 
a comment is best assured of having its full effect if OMB receives it 
within 30 days of publication.

ADDRESSES: Written comments and recommendations for the proposed 
information collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of 
this notice to www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain. Find this particular 
information collection by selecting ``Currently under 30-day Review--
Open for Public Comments'' or by using the search function.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    Description: ACF proposes to collect a set of performance measures 
from all HMRF grantees. These measures collect standardized information 
in the following areas:
    <bullet> Applicant characteristics;
    <bullet> Program operations;
    <bullet> Service delivery; and
    <bullet> Participant outcomes:
    [cir] Entrance survey, with five versions: (1) HM Program Entrance 
Survey for Adult-Focused Programs; (2) HM Program Entrance Survey for 
Youth-Focused Programs; (3) RF Program Entrance Survey for Community-
Based Fathers; (4) RF Program Entrance Survey for Community-Based 
Mothers; and (5)

[[Page 12007]]

RF Program Entrance Survey for Reentering Fathers.
    [cir] Exit survey, with five versions: (1) HM Program Exit Survey 
for Adult-Focused Programs; (2) HM Program Exit Survey for Youth-
Focused Programs; (3) RF Program Exit Survey for Community-Based 
Fathers; (4) RF Program Exit Survey for Community-Based Mothers; and 
(5) RF Program Exit Survey for Reentering Fathers.
    The measures used by the 2015 grantee cohort were developed in 2014 
after extensive review of the research literature and grantees' past 
measures. The performance measures, data collection instruments, and 
data collection system were revised in 2020 based on a targeted 
analysis of existing measures, feedback from key stakeholders, and 
discussions with ACF staff and the 2015 cohort of grantees. ACF 
required the 2015 cohort of grantees to submit data on these 
standardized measures on a quarterly basis and proposes the same 
requirement for the 2020 cohort. In addition to the performance 
measures mentioned above, ACF proposes to repeat collection for these 
data submissions:
    <bullet> Semi-annual Performance Progress Report (PPR), with two 
versions: (1) Performance Progress Report for HM Programs, and (2) 
Performance Progress Report for RF Programs; and
    <bullet> Quarterly Performance Report (QPR), with two versions: (1) 
Quarterly Performance Progress Report for HM Programs, and (2) 
Quarterly Performance Progress Report for RF Programs.
    Grantees in the new cohort will also be required to engage in 
continuous quality improvement (CQI) planning and implementation using 
a proposed CQI plan template developed by ACF. The estimated burden for 
completing and updating this template is included in the table below.
    Respondents: Respondents include HM and RF grantee staff and 
program applicants and participants (participants are called 
``clients'').

                                                                 Annual Burden Estimates
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                                                                                             Number of
                                                                             Number of     responses per
                                                                            respondents     respondent    Average burden   Total burden    Annual burden
                Instrument                           Respondent             (total over     (total over    per response     (in hours)      (in hours)
                                                                              request         request       (in hours)
                                                                              period)         period)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1: Applicant Characteristics..............  Program applicants..........         273,840               1            0.25        68,460.0        22,820.0
                                            Program staff...............             408             672            0.10        27,417.6         9,139.2
2: Program Operations.....................  Program staff...............             136              12            0.32          522.24          174.08
3: Service Delivery Data..................  Program staff...............           2,040             126            0.50       128,520.0        42,840.0
4: Entrance and Exit Surveys..............  Program clients (entrance)..         257,409               1            0.42      108,111.78       36,037.26
                                            Program clients (exit)......         169,965               1            0.42        71,385.3        23,795.1
                                            Program staff (entrance and               32           3,506            0.10        11,219.2        3,739.73
                                             exit on paper).
5: Semi-annual Performance Progress Report  Program staff...............             136               6               3         2,448.0           816.0
 (PPR).
6: Quarterly Performance Report (QPR).....  Program staff...............             136               6               1           816.0           272.0
7: CQI Plan...............................  Program staff...............             136               3               4           1,632           544.0
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    Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 140,177.37.

    Authority: Sec. 403. [42 U.S.C. 603].

Mary B. Jones,
ACF/OPRE Certifying Officer.
[FR Doc. 2021-04162 Filed 2-26-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4184-73-P