[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 49 (Thursday, March 13, 1997)]
[Notices]
[Pages 12026-12028]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-6308]
[[Page 12025]]
_______________________________________________________________________
Part V
Department of Health and Human Services
_______________________________________________________________________
Announcement of Availability of Grants for Adolescent Family Life
Demonstration Projects; Notice
Federal Register / Vol. 62, No. 49 / Thursday, March 13, 1997 /
Notice
[[Page 12026]]
DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
RIN 0905-ZBOO
Office of Public Health and Science; Announcement of Availability
of Grants for Adolescent Family Life Demonstration Projects
AGENCY: Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs, Office of Population
Affairs, OPHS, HHS.
ACTION: Notice.
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SUMMARY: The Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs (OAPP) requests
applications for grants under the Adolescent Family Life (AFL)
Demonstration Projects Program. These grants are for planning and
development of community-based and community-supported demonstration
projects to find effective means of preventing pregnancy by encouraging
adolescents to abstain from sexual activity. Although adolescents under
age 19 are eligible for services, the OAPP is particularly interested
in projects which target youth ages 9 to 14.
The OAPP is attempting to expedite and simplify the process of
awarding small grants, within the requirements of Title XX of the
Public Health Service Act, in order to solicit applications from small
grass roots and/or community-based entities.
Funds are available for approximately 20-40 projects, which may be
located in any State, the District of Columbia, the territories of
Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa,
Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Republic of Palau,
Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of
Micronesia.
Applicants also should be aware that the Department of Health and
Human Services' Maternal and Child Health Bureau will be issuing
separate grant application guidance to State Health Agencies for the
abstinence education provision contained in the ``Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996'', P.L.
104-193.
DATES: To receive consideration grant applications must be received by
the Director, Grants Management Office by April 14, 1997. Applications
will be considered as meeting the deadline if they are either (1)
Received on or before the deadline date, or (2) postmarked on or before
the deadline date and received in time for submission to the review
committee. A legibly dated receipt from a commercial carrier or U.S
Postal Service will be accepted in lieu of a postmark. Private metered
postmarks will not be accepted as proof of timely mailing. Applications
which do not meet the deadline will be considered late applications and
will be returned to the applicant.
ADDRESSES: Requests for application kits may be faxed to (301) 594-
5980. Application kits may also be obtained from and applications must
be submitted to: Grants Management Office, Office of Population
Affairs, 4350 East-West Highway, Suite 200, Bethesda, MD 20814.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Grants Management Office at (301) 594-
4012 or Program Office at (301) 594-4004. Staff are available to answer
questions and provide limited technical assistance in the preparation
of grant applications.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Title XX of the Public Health Service Act,
42 U.S.C. 300z, et seq., authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human
Services to award grants for demonstration projects to provide services
to pregnant and nonpregnant adolescents, adolescent parents and their
families. (Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance Number 93.995) Title
XX authorizes grants for three types of demonstration projects: (1)
projects which provide ``care services'' only (i.e., services for the
provisions of care to pregnant adolescents, adolescent parents and
their families); (2) projects which provide ``prevention services''
only (i.e., services to prevent adolescent sexual relations); and (3)
projects which provide a combination of care and prevention services.
Under this program announcement, OAPP intends to make available
approximately $1 million to support an estimated 20-40 new prevention
demonstration projects only. The awards will range from $20,000 to
$50,000. These grants will be awarded for a period of one year to grass
roots and/or community organizations for the purpose of planning and
developing a pilot prevention project. We encourage applications from
organizations currently serving youth.
A grant award may not exceed 70 percent of the total cost of the
project for the first year. The non-Federal share of the project costs
may be provided in cash expenditures or fairly evaluated in-kind
contributions, including plant, equipment and services.
The specific prevention services which may be funded under Title XX
are listed below under Prevention Programs.
The following application requirements contain information
collections subject to OMB approval under the Paperwork Reduction Act
of 1995 (P.L. 104-13). These information collections have been approved
by OMB under control number 0937-0189.
Eligible Applicants
Any public or private nonprofit organization or agency is eligible
to apply for a grant. Grants are awarded only to those organizations or
agencies which are determined to demonstrate the capability of
providing the proposed services and meet the statutory requirements.
Prevention Programs
Under this announcement, funds are available for local projects
only.
The primary purpose of prevention programs is to find effective
means of reaching adolescents, both male and female, before they become
sexually active in order to encourage them to abstain from sexual
activity. There is general agreement that early initiation of sexual
activity brings not only the risk of unintended pregnancy but also
substantial health risks to adolescents, primarily infection with
sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) including HIV. Accordingly,
applicants must provide services that help pre-adolescents and young
adolescents acquire knowledge and skills that will instill healthy
attitudes and encourage and support abstinence from sexual activity.
Any information provided for adolescents who may be or become sexually
active, which relates to reducing the risk of unintended pregnancy and
disease, must be medically accurate and must be presented within the
context that abstinence is the best choice and is what the project
recommends.
Under this announcement, OAPP will fund proposals to grass roots
and/or community organizations to plan and pilot test a prevention
project consistent with this program announcement. OAPP will not fund
proposals to develop new prevention curricula. Applicants must propose
to use existing and available educational materials/curricula which are
consistent with this program announcement.
Programs must be consistent with abstinence education as defined in
the ``Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation act
of 1996'', P.L. 104-193. Accordingly, under this announcement the term
``abstinence education'' means an educational or motivational program
which--
A. has as its exclusive purpose, teaching the social, psychological,
and health gains to be realized by abstaining from sexual activity;
[[Page 12027]]
B. teaches abstinence from sexual activity outside marriage as the
expected standard for all school age children;
C. teaches that abstinence from sexual activity is the only certain way
to avoid out-of-wedlock pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and
other associated health problems;
D. teaches that a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context
of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity;
E. teaches that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is
likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects;
F. teaches that bearing children out-of-wedlock is likely to have
harmful consequences for the child, the child's parents, and society;
G. teaches young people how to reject sexual advances and how alcohol
and drug use increases vulnerability to sexual advances; and
H. teaches the importance of attaining self-sufficiency before engaging
in sexual activity.
Under the statutory requirements of Title XX, applicants for
prevention programs are not required to provide any specific array of
services. OAPP encourages the submission of applications which focus on
educational services relating to family life and which teach the
social, psychological and health gains to be realized by abstaining
from sexual activity.
The legislation also permits a proposal to include any one or more
of the following services as appropriate:
(1) Educational services relating to family life and problems
associated with adolescent premarital sexual relations including:
(a) Information about adoption,
(b) Education on the responsibilities of sexuality and parenting,
(c) The development of material to support the role of parents as the
providers of sex education, and
(d) Assistance to parents, schools, youth agencies and health providers
to educate adolescents and preadolescents concerning self-discipline
and responsibility in human sexuality;
(2) Appropriate educational and vocational services;
(3) Counseling for the immediate and extended family members of the
eligible person;
(4) Transportation;
(5) Outreach services to families of adolescents to discourage
sexual relations among unemancipated minors.
If an applicant chooses to provide any of the above services in
addition to educational services relating to family life and problems
associated with adolescent premarital sexual relations, the applicant
must justify how these services ((2) through (5)) will support or
promote the educational component.
Evaluation
Section 2006(b)(1) of Title XX requires each grantee to expend at
least one percent but not more than five percent of the Federal funds
received under Title XX on evaluation of the project. As this is a
demonstration program, all applications are required to have an
evaluation component consistent with the scope of the proposed project
and the funding level. Given the nature of these small grants, the
expectations of OAPP are that applicants will budget evaluation costs
at the lower end (one percent). All project evaluations should monitor
program processes to determine whether the program has been carried out
as planned and measure the program's outcomes where possible.
Section 2006(b)(2) requires that an organization or an entity
independent of the grantee providing services assist the grantee in
evaluating the project. The OAPP recommends consultation between the
applicant organization and the proposed evaluator in the development of
the intervention and of the evaluation plan.
Application Requirements
Applications must be submitted on the forms supplied (PHS 5161-1,
Revised 5/96) and in the manner prescribed in the application kits
provided by the OAPP. Applicants are required to submit an application
signed by an individual authorized to act for the applicant agency or
organization and to assume for the organization the obligations imposed
by the terms and conditions of the grant award. Applications sent by
FAX will not be accepted.
Applicants must be familiar with Title XX in its entirety to ensure
that they have complied with all applicable requirements. A copy of the
legislation is included in the application kit.
It should be noted that grantees may not teach or promote religion
in their AFL project. Each grant project must be accessible to the
public generally, not just to those of a particular religious
affiliation.
Under sec. 2011(a) of the Act, AFL projects may not provide
abortions or abortion counseling or referral either directly or through
subcontract and may not advocate, promote or encourage abortion.
However, if both the adolescent and her parents request abortion
counseling, a project may provide referral for such counseling.
Additional Requirements
Applicants for grants must also meet the following requirements:
(1) Requirements for Review of an Application by the Governor.
Section 2006(e) of Title XX requires that each applicant shall provide
the governor of the State in which the applicant is located a copy of
each application submitted to OAPP for a grant for a demonstration
project for services under this Title. The Governor has 60 days from
the receipt date in which to provide comments to the applicant.
An applicant may comply with this requirement by submitting a copy
of the application to the governor of the State in which the applicant
is located at the same time the application is submitted to OAPP. To
inform the governor's office of the reason for the submission, a copy
of this notice should be attached to the application.
(2) Review Under Executive Order 12372. Applications under this
announcement are subject to the review requirements of E.O. 12372,
``Intergovernmental Review of Federal Programs,'' as implemented by 45
CFR part 100, ``Intergovernmental Review of Department of Health and
Human Services Programs and Activities.'' E.O. 12372 sets up a system
for state and local government review of proposed Federal assistance
applications. As soon as possible the applicant (other than federally-
recognized Indian tribal governments) should contact the Governor's
Office in the state to be served for information regarding the
particular review process designed by the state. The State comment(s)
should be forwarded to the Grants Management Office, Office of
Population Affairs, 4350 East-West Highway, Suite 200, Bethesda, MD
20814. Such comments must be received by the Office of Population
Affairs by August 11, 1997 to be considered.
The application kit contains information to guide applicants in
fulfilling the above requirements.
Application Consideration and Assessment
Applications which are judged to be late or which do not conform to
the requirements of this program announcement will not be accepted for
review. Applicants will be so notified, and the applications will be
returned. All other applications will be reviewed by a
multidisciplinary panel of independent reviewers and assessed according
to the following criteria:
[[Page 12028]]
(1) The applicant is a public or nonprofit grass roots and/or
community agency which networks with and is supported by other
community agencies, serves youth and has the capacity to develop the
pilot project, test it, and document the implementation process. (40
points)
(2) The applicant's rationale for use of the proposed approach and
description of the proposed project are consistent with the program
announcement, reflect community needs and would result in a project
that could be continued on a larger scale. (50 points)
(3) The applicant's presentation of an evaluation plan, indicates
an understanding of the necessity for documenting the process of the
pilot implementation and any outcomes. (10 points)
Final grant award decisions will be made by the Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Populations Affairs. In making these decisions, the
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs will take into
account the extent to which grants approved for funding will provide an
appropriate geographic distribution of resources, the priorities in
sec. 2005(a), and the other factors in sec. 2005, including
consideration of:
(1) The applicant's capacity to administer funds responsibly;
(2) The incidence of adolescent pregnancy and the availability of
services in the geographic area to be served;
(3) The population to be served;
(4) The community commitment to and involvement in planning and
implementation of the demonstration project;
(5) The organizational model(s) for delivery of service;
(6) The usefulness for policymakers and service providers of the
proposed project and its potential for complementing existing
adolescent health models;
(7) The reasonableness of the estimated cost to the government
considering the anticipated results.
OAPP does not release information about individual applications
during the review process until final funding decisions have been made.
When these decisions have been made, applicants will be notified by
letter of the outcome of their applications. The official document
notifying an applicant that an application has been approved for
funding is the Notice of Grant Award, which specifies to the grantee
the amount of money awarded, the purpose of the grant, the terms and
conditions of the grant award, and the amount of funding to be
contributed by the grantee to project costs.
Dated: January 13, 1997.
Thomas C. Kring,
Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs.
[FR Doc. 97-6308 Filed 3-12-97; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4160-17-M
