05-15679. Office of Refugee Resettlement

AGENCY:

Office of Refugee Resettlement, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS).

ACTION:

Notice of public comment on the proposed Noncompetitive Single Source Program expansion supplement to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS).

CFDA#: The Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number for this program is 93.576. The title is the Refugee Family Enrichment Program.

SUMMARY:

Notice is hereby given that it has been proposed that a noncompetitive single-source program expansion supplement to an ongoing competitive award be made to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) in response to an unsolicited application. This application proposes to provide additional training and technical assistance to organizations implementing Refugee Marriage Enrichment projects. The application is not within the scope of any existing or expected to be issued program announcement for the Fiscal Year 2006. HIAS's application is expected to address issues critical to the development and implementation of marriage education programs for refugees by providing valuable on-site training and technical assistance to grantees and sub-grantees that offer marital communication training to refugee couples.

In September of 2003, ORR awarded HIAS a grant of $200,000 to develop a Refugee Family Enrichment program which included technical assistance to subgrantees. Because of their success in the development of their marriage enrichment program, in 2004 HIAS was awarded a noncompetitive single source program expansion supplement to an ongoing competitive award to expand its Technical Assistance Services Program to Refugee Family Enrichment project sites specified by ORR. HIAS has since provided over 600 hours of technical assistance to project sites operated by organizations across the country. Their technical assistance primarily supports the work of small Mutual Assistance Associations, and without it, these agencies might struggle to provide refugee clients with the programs they need in order to achieve self sufficiency. The proposed project period is 9/30/2005-9/29/2006.

Technical assistance to support grantees in developing better approaches to the delivery of services provided to refugees is authorized by section 412(c)(1)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1522(c)(1)).

DATES:

The deadline for receipt of comments is 15 days from the date of publication in the Federal Register.

ADDRESSES:

Comments in response to this notice should be addressed to Nguyen Van Hanh, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Refugee Resettlement, 370 L'Enfant Promenade, SW., Washington, DC 20447.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:

Administration for Children and Families, Office of Refugee Resettlement, 370 L'Enfant Promenade, SW., Washington, DC 20447, Loren Bussert—[phone], [e-mail].

Dated: August 2, 2005.

Nguyen Van Hanh,

Director, Office of Refugee Resettlement.