OCSE Reviewer Recruitment Letter and Discretionary Grant Reviewer Recruitment Questionnaire (Previously approved, ongoing collection)

June 6, 2016

Good morning!

As you may know, the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) recently posted two Section 1115 funding opportunity announcements:

1. Procedural Justice Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) Demonstration

2. Evaluation of Procedural Justice Informed Alternatives to Contempt (PJAC) Demonstration

I am writing because you have been identified as someone who may have interest in serving as a peer reviewer for these grant applications. Our criteria for grant reviewers are straightforward: we seek reviewers who have extensive knowledge and experience in one or more of the subject matters directly related to the current funding opportunity announcements. These subject matters include child support policy and administration, child support contempt and enforcement activities, procedural justice informed programming and implementation, family-centered strategies and employment programs (especially for low-income non-custodial parents), program evaluation methodologies, and family policy.

If you have the required knowledge and experience and would like to be a reviewer, then we encourage you to send your resume and the attached voluntary survey to LaTania Williams via email at OCSE.Reviewers@acf.hhs.gov and copy me (Michelle.Jadczak@acf.hhs.gov). Please DO NOT submit your resume for consideration if you plan to apply for a grant award (either as the primary applicant or as a project partner), have a personal and/or financial interest in a party who may apply, or if you know of any other reason for which you could not serve as a partial reviewer. OCSE will perform further screening of reviewers prior to selection and confirmation.

OCSE reviewers must be available for training on Tuesday, July 19, 2016 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM Eastern Standard Time (EST). The review will take place Wednesday, July 20 through Friday, July 29, 2016. Reviewers do not need to be available during work hours every day of the review, but must have flexibility in order to 1) read the applications, and 2) meet with fellow reviewers via conference call to discuss applications and scores. Additionally, reviewers will need to have some availability during the weekend of July 23-24, 2016 to perform these functions.

OCSE’s competitive review of applications is managed via a remote review system that allows peer reviewers in different locations to review and discuss applications in a virtual environment. Selected reviewers will receive training on the system and the review process. Non-federal reviewers selected to participate will receive an honorarium of $850.

OCSE will only contact those individuals selected to participate as grant reviewers. To provide some context, OCSE makes relatively fewer competitive grants than some other offices in the Administration for Children and Families and therefore we will only require a small number of reviewers. Nonetheless, the success of our grant review for these programs depends greatly on the quality of the reviewers serving on our review panels, and we appreciate your interest!

Regards,

Michelle M. Jadczak, MSW

Senior Advisor for Grants and Evaluation, OCSE Division of Program Innovation, michelle.jadczak@acf.hhs.gov

The Administration for Children and Families’

Discretionary Grant Reviewer Recruitment Questionnaire

The Administration for Children and Families, U. S. Department of Health and Human Services is committed to increasing the diversity of the non-Federal peer reviewers utilized in the competitive grants review process to the extent permitted by law.  You can help us achieve this goal by voluntarily indicating your race and/or ethnic heritage on the self-identification section by checking the appropriate box on the reviewer application form.  Please note that this section utilizes the standard Federal identification categories.  Your assistance is invaluable in enabling the agency to promote broad representation, especially for underserved and underrepresented groups and track our progress on this important goal.

The questions listed as voluntary will not be used in the selection of grant reviewers for Administration for Children and Families’ discretionary grant programs. This information will be used solely to monitor the diversity of our grant reviewer pool.

Click a check box to designate a selection:

☐--American Indian or Alaskan Native
☐--Asian or Pacific Islander
☐--Black, not of Hispanic origin
☐--Hispanic
☐--White, not of Hispanic origin.

Paperwork Reduction Act

OMB Control Number: 0970-0477 Expiration Date: 3/31/2019

This communication is considered a collection of information under the Paperwork Reduction Act. The response is estimated to average five minutes per person, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information. An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

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