05-12821. Submission for OMB Review; Comment Request

Title: Evaluation of the Improving Child Welfare Outcome Through Systems of Care Grant Program.

OMB No.: New Collection.

Description: The 1994 Amendments to the Social Security Act (SSA) authorize the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to review State child and family service programs to ensure conformance with the requirements in titles IV-B and IV-E of the SSA. Under the Final Rule, which took effective March 25, 2000, States are assessed for substantial conformity with certain Federal requirements for child-welfare services. The Child and Family Service Reviews (CFSR), administered by the Children's Bureau, are designed to ensure conformity with Federal child-welfare requirements and, ultimately, to help States improve child-welfare services and outcomes, specifically safety, permanency, and well-being outcomes for child-welfare involved children and their families. States determined not to have achieved substantial conformity in any of the areas assessed are required to develop and implement program improvement plans (PIP) addressing the areas of nonconformity.

The Systems of Care grant cluster, from which these data are proposed to be collected, is designed to encourage public child-welfare agencies to address the issues identified in their state's CFSR. Although Systems of Care has shown promise in working with various at-risk and family populations, it has not been applied to a child-welfare target population. The data collected from these demonstration sites will allow the Children's Bureau to test whether this approach can help States reach the goals stated in their program improvement plans and explore how child welfare can benefit from being part of a system of care. Data will be collected via interviews, forms completed by project staff, surveys, focus groups and case file reviews. Data also will be collected to determine the extent to which the Technical Assistance (TA) provided, brokered or contracted by the TA and Evaluation Center is meeting the needs of the grantees, and how.

Respondents

• Systems of Care Project Directors;
• Members of the Systems of Care collaborative (may include representatives from mental health, juvenile justice, education, health, among others);
• Child-welfare agency supervisors and caseworkers;
• Partner agency caseworkers; and
• Families who have been involved with the child-welfare system.

Annual Burden Estimates

Instrument	Number of respondents	Number of responses per respondent	Average burden hours per response (minutues)	Total burden hours (hours)
Stakeholder Survey	240	51 items	.29	59
Child-Welfare Agency Survey	1440	72 items	.29	501
Supervisor Interviews	140	5 questions	5	58
Interview with family members	140	5 questions	5	58
Stakeholder Interviews	140	5 questions	5	58
Project Director Interviews	30	21 questions 1	4	42
Child-Welfare agency and Partner agency focus groups	700	6 questions	6	420
Community Description Form	20	14 items	2	9
Organizational Structure Form	20	7 items	4	9
Collaborative Membership Form	20	7 items	2	5
Major Activities Form	20	7 items	6	14
Policy Changes Form	20	7	6	14
Other Training and Technical Assistance Form	20	4 items	5	7
Training and Technical Assistance Participant Feedback Forms	1080	37 items	.56	373
Technical Assistance Follow-up Survey	518	15	.29	38
Total Estimated Total Annual Burden Hours:				1,665
1 (1 hour for entire interview).

Additional Information: Copies of the proposed collection may be obtained by writing to the Administration for Children and Families, Office of Administration, 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: [e-mail].

OMB Comments: 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 information collection should be sent directly to the following: Office of Management and Budget, Paperwork Reduction Project, Attn: Desk Officer for ACF, e-mail address: [e-mail]

Dated: June 23, 2005.

Robert Sargis,

Reports Clearance Officer.