[Federal Register: May 4, 2004 (Volume 69, Number 86)]
[Notices]
[Page 24604-24605]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr04my04-52]
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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
Administration for Children and Families
Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request
Title: HHS/ACF/ASPE/DOL Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ
Demonstration and Evaluation Project Baseline Survey (Revised).
OMB No.: 0970-0251.
Description: The Enhanced Services for the Hard-to-Employ
Demonstration and Evaluation Project (HtE) is the most ambitious,
comprehensive effort to learn what works in this area to date and is
explicitly designed to build on previous and ongoing research by
rigorously testing a wide variety of approaches to promote employment
and improve family functioning and child well-being. The HtE project
will ``conduct a multi-site evaluation that studies the implementation
issues, program design, net impact and benefit-costs of selected
programs'' \1\ designed to help Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
(TANF) recipients, former TANF recipients, or low-income parents who
are hard-to-employ. The project is sponsored by the Office of Planning,
Research and Evaluation (OPRE) of the Administration for Children and
Families (ACF), the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and
Evaluation (ASPE) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS), and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). The evaluation involves
an experimental, random assignment design in six sites, testing a
diverse set of strategies to promote employment for low-income parents
who face serious obstacles to employment, including physical and mental
health problems, substance abuse, human capital deficiencies, and
situational barriers. As many as two of the sites included in the
evaluation will feature ``two generation'' models, serving both parents
and their children. Over the next several years, the HtE project will
generate a wealth of rigorous data on implementation, effects, and
costs of these alternatives approaches. The data collected will be used
for the following purposes:
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\1\ From the Department of Health and Human Services RFP No.:
233-01-0012
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To study the extent to which different HtE
approaches impact employment, earnings, income, welfare dependence, and
the presence or persistence of employment barriers;
To collect data on a wider range of outcome
measures than is available through Welfare, Medicaid, Food Stamps,
Social Security, the Criminal Justice System or Unemployment Insurance
records in order to understand the family circumstances and attributes
and situations that contribute to the difficulties in finding
employment; job retention and job quality; educational attainment;
interactions with and knowledge of the HtE program; household
composition; childcare; transportation; health care; income; physical
and mental health problems; substance abuse; domestic violence; and
criminal history.
To conduct non-experimental analyses to explain
participation decisions and provide a descriptive picture of the
circumstances of individuals who are hard-to-employ;
To obtain participation information important to
the evaluation's benefit-cost component; and to obtain contact
information for possible future follow-up, information that will be
important to achieving high response rates for additional surveys.
Materials for the HtE baseline survey were previously submitted to
OMB on April 28, 2003, and were subsequently approved. The purpose of
this revision is to introduce new instruments for the collection of
baseline data in the mental health barriers site. Much of the
substantive content in these instruments was included in the Mental
Health Module and Core Survey that were approved in our original
submission. All other instruments included in this submission remain
unchanged since OMB approval.
Respondents: The respondents of the baseline survey are TANF
recipients, former TANF recipients, or low-income individuals who are
hard-to-employ from the five states currently participating in the HtE
project: Kansas, New York, Pennsylvania, Maine, and Rhode Island.
Survey respondents can be grouped according to four target populations:
ex-offenders with children; low-income parents with mental health
barriers; populations connected to the TANF system; and programs
working with two-generations (parents and their children). Prior to
random assignment, basic demographic information for all survey
respondents will be obtained wherever possible from the program's
automated system.
We had originally planned to administer a core set of questions via
Audio-Computer Assisted Self Interview (ACASI-Core) to survey
respondents in all sites. However, the revised mental health
instruments have eliminated the need for a Core survey in this site, so
we have reduced the number of Core survey respondents that were
estimated in the previous OMB submission by 2,000 (the number of
respondents originally estimated for the mental health site). The
criminal justice site, which is the only site that has begun random
assignment, ultimately did not implement the Core survey, using
baseline data supplied by the program instead. However, we did not
deduct the number of criminal justice sample members from the number of
Core survey respondents for the purpose of comparability.
A separate set of questions will be administered in two stages (via
a mail-out/telephone screener and a detailed telephone interview) in
the site operating a program aimed at survey respondents with mental
health problems. Approximately 918 respondents will complete the full
30 minutes of baseline data collection.
Finally, in the two-generation sites (as many as two of the six
sites), survey respondents will complete a two-generation survey
administered by a Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI), in
addition to the Core survey.
[[Page 24605]]
Annual Burden Estimates
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Number of
Instrument Number of responses per Average burden hours per Total burden
respondents respondent response hours
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Audio-CASI Core.................... 10,000 1 10 minutes or .17 hrs...... 1,666.67
Criminal Justice Module............ 2,000 1 12 minutes or .20 hrs...... 400
Mental Health: One-Page Screener... 5,100 1 2 minutes or .03 hrs....... 170
Mental Health:
Baseline....................... 612 1 10 minutes or .17 hrs...... 102
Telephone Interview............ 918 1 28 minutes or .47 hrs...... 428.4
Two-Generation CAPI................ 4,000 1 24 minutes or .40 hrs...... 1,600
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Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours: 4,367.07.
Additional Information
Copies of the proposed collection may be obtained by writing to the
Administration for Children and Families, Office of Information
Services, 370 L'Enfant Promenade, SW., Washington, DC 20447, Attn: ACF
Reports Clearance Officer. All requests should be identified by the
title of the information collection: E-mail address:
grjohnson@acf.hhs.gov.
OMB Comment
OMB is required to make a decision concerning 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.
Written comments and recommendations for the proposed informational
collection should be sent directly to the following: Office of
Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project, Attn: Desk Officer
for ACF, E-mail address: katherine_t._astrich@omb.eop.gov.
Dated: April 27, 2004.
Robert Sargis,
Reports Clearance Officer.
[FR Doc. 04-10077 Filed 5-3-04; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4184-01-M