OMB No. 0970-XXXX, Expiration XX/XX/20XX
Evaluation of Domestic Human Trafficking Demonstration Projects
Supporting Statement B
New Collection
February 2016
Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation
Administration for Children and Families
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Mary Switzer Building
330 C Street, SW
Washington, DC, 20201
This evaluation will collect qualitative data using key informant interviews with grantee and partner agency staff, case narrative interviews with case managers, and interviews with grantee clients. The RTI International evaluation team will collect data during two site visits, one in summer of 2016 and one in summer of 2017, to each of the three demonstration sites. During the site visits, evaluation team members will conduct key informant interviews with project directors, case managers, and key community partners, and ask cost and labor questions with project directors. After the first site visit, RTI staff will conduct case narrative interviews with case managers. The team will also interview selected clients receiving case management services from the grantees. In addition to interviews conducted during site visits, RTI will arrange a call with each grantee every 2 months. During these calls, RTI will ask project directors or their designees about any significant program developments and review questions that may have arisen from document review activities. RTI will also request and review program documents and materials, such as funding applications, memoranda of understanding, screening and assessment tools, information sharing protocols, and training materials.
The respondent universe for this data collection is defined as project directors, case managers, partners, and clients of the three programs funded under this grant. Project directors and case managers will help determine who we should speak with, choosing staff and partners on the basis of their direct work with grant activities and choosing clients on the basis of their willingness and mental and emotional capacity. Our sample will therefore be a nonprobability-based purposeful sample rather than a probability-based sample. Because the collected data will be inherently grantee- and program-specific, we cannot generalize our findings to other service providers or other individuals affected by domestic human trafficking. Statistical power is not applicable because this is a qualitative study.
Qualitative methods provide flexible in-depth exploration of the participants’ perceptions and experience, and the interviews will yield descriptions in the participants’ own words. Qualitative methods also allow the interviewer the flexibility to pursue relevant and important issues as they arise during the discussion, which is important because of the variation between the three programs (and the inherent variation among client narratives).
Interviews with project directors, case managers, partner agencies, and clients will be conducted in-person during site visits in summer 2016 and summer 2017. Interviews will be conducted by a member of the RTI evaluation team, with a second team member present to take notes. Client narratives will be conducted over the phone, using the same format of an interviewer and a note taker. With the respondent’s permission, the evaluation team will audio record the interview as a backup to their notes. Before the interview starts, the interviewer will describe the purpose of the interview and summarize how the data will be used and privacy measures that are in place. Participants will be informed that their participation is voluntary, and that their identity and anything they say will be treated in a secure manner. The interviewer will then conduct a semi-structured interview with the participant using the established interview guides included in Appendix A-1 through A-7. Interviews are expected to last one to two hours, depending on the guide. After the notes are finalized, the audio recording will be erased. During site visits, electronic notes will be transferred nightly from encrypted laptops to RTI’s private network, using a share drive that only authorized RTI evaluation team members can access. Client interview data will be summarized in dissemination documents in a manner that does not reveal clients’ identities. Any hard copy interview notes will be shredded after the notes have been typed up.
For client interviews specifically, case managers will be asked to identify clients who meet the evaluation’s selection criteria and offer them the chance to participate in an interview. Clients will be told that their decision to participate or not will have no effect on any services they receive from the program. This assurance will be repeated by the evaluation team member conducting the interview. Additionally, clients will be told that they may choose not to answer any given question and may choose to stop the interview at any point. The RTI interviewer will explain that information the client shares during the interview will be not be shared with program staff, nor will any information be reported that could individually identify them. The exception to privacy provisions will be any information indicating future harm to the client or another person.
The evaluation team will conduct case narrative interviews with the program case workers via telephone throughout the evaluation period. These phone calls will be treated the same as the in-person interviews, with two members of the evaluation team on the phone and adherence to the same security and privacy protocols.
We will employ several methods to maximize response rates for the client interviews. For client interviews, case managers will be asked to identify clients who meet the evaluation’s selection criteria and offer them the chance to participate in an interview. Clients will be told that their decision to participate or not will have no effect on any services they receive from the program. Client response rate will be maximized through a $25-dollar gift card provided after interview completion. (Justification for this incentive amount can be found in Supporting Statement A, section A.9). However, if a client initially agrees to participate and then declines, the case manager can identify other clients to be interviewed instead. This initial nonresponse will not affect the analytical validity of the research because the client interviews are not intended to be generalizable beyond that individual.
We do not anticipate challenges with low response rates or nonresponse for the other interview participants (project directors, case managers, and partner staff), because of the purposeful selection of interviewees and because grantee participation in the federal evaluation is a requirement of the grant.
The key informant interview guides, case narrative guides, and cost/labor module (Appendices A-1 through A-4, A-6, and A-7) have been tested with fewer than ten people. Because of this, the burden estimate closely resembles what the actual burden will be for the FY2015 grantees. The client interview guide (Appendix A-5) was revised from a previous guide used for programs serving child victims of trafficking sponsored by the Natational Institutes of Justice. OMB approval was not required for that effort. Staff at RTI who worked on the National Institute of Justice project relayed that the client interview guide took about 30 to 45 minutes to complete. Additional questions were added to address the ACF research questions and we estimate the total time will be about an hour with these new questions.
Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation
Administration for Children and Families
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Kathleen Dwyer, Project Officer
Mary Mueggenborg, Project Officer
RTI International
Frances Gragg, Project Director
Deborah Gibbs, Principal Investigator
Jennifer Hardison Walters, Associate Project Director
Kathleen Krieger, Task Lead
Merissa Gremminger, Task Lead
Rose Feinberg, Analyst
Nakisa Asefnia, Project Manager and Analyst
Shilpi Misra, Analyst
| File Type | application/msword |
| File Title | Supporting Statement for Paperwork Reduction Act Submission |
| Author | Peyton Williams |
| Last Modified By | Krieger, Kathleen |
| File Modified | 2016-02-24 |
| File Created | 2016-02-24 |