The Evaluation of the Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers and Their Partners (MFS-IP

Non-substantive change request for OMB control #0990-0331

HHs is requesting approval for a non-substantive change to the information collection assigned OMB control number 0990–0331, which expires on August 31, 2015. This study, the Evaluation of the Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers and Their Partners (MFS-IP), involves longitudinal data collection with couples participating in HHS-funded MFS-IP grant programs as well as a comparison group of similar couples who did not participate in MFS-IP programs. Currently we have approval for 4 waves of survey data collection: baseline, 9, 18, and 34 months post-baseline.

Proposed Adjustment to Study Approach

We are requesting permission to conduct qualitative follow-back interviews with up to 50 individuals from our longitudinal study sample that were not included in all 4 waves of survey data collection. This qualitative follow-back will replace the fourth wave of data collection for those individuals. Follow-back interviews will focus on the domains and constructs included in the quantitative follow--up surveys, with the intent of obtaining clarifying information on participants’ survey responses for a small number of items from the quantitative survey. The qualitative surveys have about 50 items. The quantitative male questionnaire had 645 items, while the female questionnaire had 760 items.

The qualitative information from the follow-back interviews will enable us to better understand how reentry success and family well-being are interrelated for the survey population, inform future research and evaluation with this population (particularly development and selection of appropriate quantitative measures of family relationship quality), and better identify meaningful leverage points for reentry intervention. Making this protocol adjustment will help ensure we achieve our original study objective of assisting Federal, state, and community policymakers and stakeholders in understanding what policy and programmatic supports could help to strengthen families and improve reentry outcomes in this population.

HHS will also be making a request for a fifth wave of data collection for up to an additional 100 individuals who completed the fourth wave of the survey. Since approval of the fifth wave of data collection involve a longer review and approval process, submitting two separate modifications will allow for better management of the follow-back interview process. The project end date for this evaluation is September 2015.

The revised interview guides to be used for the follow-back interviews appear as Appendix A. The revised consent forms to be used for the follow-back interviews appear as Appendix B.

For your convenience in reviewing the follow-back interview guides, comparable questions from the quantitative survey instruments are imbedded in the revised instruments.

No Impact on Respondent Burden

As described above, this protocol adjustment involves follow-back contact with a small subset of the study participants who did not complete all four waves of OMB-approved survey data collection. As such, this adjustment does not require an adjustment to the respondent burden associated with this data collection effort.

The table below shows data collection burden, which remains unchanged from the data collection burden approved by OMB in our study renewal of August 2012. 

Forms	Annualized Number of  Respon-dents	Number of Responses per  Respondent	Average Burden (in hours) per Response	Total Annual-ized Burden	Hourly Wage Rate	Total Annual-ized Hourly Cost
MFS-IP Follow-up Survey—Male (9 & 18 month)	321	1	1.5	481.5	$5.85	$2816.78
MFS-IP Follow-up Survey—Female (9 & 18 month)	488.3	1	1.5	732.5	$17.17	$12577.03
MFS-IP Follow-up Survey—Male   (34 month and follow-back)	462.7	1	1.5	694	$5.85	$4059.90
MFS-IP Follow-up Survey—Female  (34 month and follow-back)	462.7	1	1.5	694	$17.17	$11915.98
Totals				2602		$31369.69