Attachment A - YARH-3 National Partner Stakeholder Meeting

We’ll begin shortly. Before we do, I want to let everyone know we’ll be recording this meeting just so we have an accurate account of what’s said today. We only plan to use the recording internally. [START RECORDING.]

Welcome to the third meeting of the YARH National Partner Stakeholder Work Group! We really appreciate you taking the time to provide us with your thoughts and feedback.

Today we’re going to gather your input on our plans for the YARH Phase 3 summative evaluation, which will examine one of the comprehensive service models you heard about during the kick-off meeting back in February: Colorado’s Pathways to Success (Pathways). We’re going to ask for your feedback in a variety of ways, using the WebEx chat feature, polling, and open discussion.

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Who’s here?

Mathematica

1. • •Kelsey Chesnut, stakeholder engagement  

   • •Megan Shoji, task lead, stakeholder engagement 

   • •Morgan Woods, stakeholder engagement 

   • •Cay Bradley, project director 

   • •Menbere Shiferaw, impact study design 

   • •Rosalind Keith, implementation study design lead 

   • •Missy Thomas, survey director 

Project officers

1. • •Mary Mueggenborg, Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation 

   • •Catherine Heath, Children’s Bureau 

Stakeholders

YARH National Partner Stakeholder Work Group members

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YARH National Partner Stakeholder Work Group

David Howard

1. • •Covenant House 

Jasmine Hayes

1. • •Capacity Building Center for States 

Johanna Bergan

1. • •Youth Move 

Laura Chadwick

1. • •Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation 

Megan Gibbard Kline

1. • •A Way Home America 

Michelle Daly

1. • •SAMHSA, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment 

Anna Gennari

1. • •Foster Youth in Action 

Caroline Crouse

1. • •Dept. Housing and Urban Development 

Catherine Lester

1. • •Jim Casey Youth Opportunities Initiative 

Kevin Solarte

1. • •Corporation for Supportive Housing 

Krysta Esquivel

1. • •YMCA of San Diego County 

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Today’s Goals

I'm going to start by briefly orienting us to the goals of today's meeting. Then we'll spend the bulk of our time discussing our plans for study recruitment and engagement and gathering your feedback.

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Inform recruitment plans for the YARH-3 summative evaluation

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At a high level, the goal of today’s meeting is to inform study recruitment plans for the YARH-3 summative evaluation.

As a reminder, YARH Phase 3 aims to build the evidence base on promising strategies to prevent homelessness and support youth and young adults involved in the child welfare system.

[Animation 1] Since we last met, ACF has decided to move forward with a summative evaluation to assess the implementation and impacts of Colorado’s Pathways to Success program. For Alameda, ACF decided to continue conducting evaluation activities to keep strengthening their comprehensive service model, Youth Transitions Partnership, which gives ACF and the field the opportunity to continue to learn about methods of effective engagement of transition-age youth.

[Animation 2] Today we’re focusing on the summative evaluation of Pathways, which will examine key outcomes related to housing, social-emotional well-being, education and employment, and permanent connections. It will assess impacts of the Pathways program by comparing outcomes for two groups: An intervention group of youth in counties that offer the Pathways program, and a comparison group of youth in counties that offer comparison services through the county’s Chafee program.

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Pathways Serves High-Risk Youth
Enrolled Youth Report an Average of 4.9 Risk Factors

 

Icebreaker

In the chat window, share one effective, cool, promising, or go-to strategy for involving this population in research.

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With that population in mind, I want to start us all off with a quick icebreaker. I’ll give everyone one minute to share in the chat window one effective, cool, promising, or go-to strategy for involving this population in research.

[Show everyone how to get to the chat window]

[After 1 minute] Thanks everyone – now I’ll give you all a chance to read through the ideas that people put in. [give people 20-30 sec]. Does anyone have any follow-up questions, or see an idea they’re particularly excited about? [If no one is responding, summarize them or pick a couple to highlight]

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Discuss three aspects of our plans

1. 1.Study recruitment script 

2. 2.Focus group recruitment 

3. 3.Data collection incentives 

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Thanks everyone. We’ll move now into our discussion, which will focus on three aspects of our plans for recruiting youth to participate in evaluation activities that we’d like your feedback on:

1. 1. 1.Our script for recruiting youth into the study 

   2. 2.Our plans for recruiting youth into focus groups 

   3. 3.And our plans for data collection incentives 

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Study Recruitment

Let’s start with our plans for inviting youth to participate in the study. First, we’ll provide some background on our plans for recruiting youth into the study, and then we’ll ask for your reactions to our draft recruitment script.

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Overview of study recruitment plans

Identify eligible youth

1. • •Youth ages 14-21 

   • •Eligible for Chafee services 

   • •Report at least one risk factor on Pathways screening tool 

Invite youth to participate in the study

1. • •Briefly describe the study and what participation would involve 

   • •Obtain informed consent 

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Recruitment script

• •Lights, camera, role play! 

• •General introduction to gauge interest 

• •As you listen to the script, think about the following: 

• • -Will the script engage youth? 

  • -Is the language in the script accessible to this population and age group? Will the script effectively inform youth about what activities they would be asked to be involved in as part of the study? 

  • -Does the script need to provide more detail? Less detail? 

  • -Is the script inclusive of a range of experiences and situations? 

  • -Is the script coercive in any way? 

*We’ll discuss incentives later in the meeting

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• •Before we start this activity, I want to emphasize that we’re thinking of the script as a general introduction to gauge youth’s interest and open the door to the study, and it’s not as comprehensive as the consent form will be. If you do think it should be more comprehensive, feel free to bring that up during the discussion! 

• •To get your feedback on the script we’re going to do a quick role play. Missy will play the part of a Chafee worker reading the script aloud to recruit a potential study participant. Megan will play the part of the young person Missy is inviting to participate in the study. As we play this out, you can follow along with the script if you’d like. We’d also like you to reflect on five key considerations we have in mind when it comes to recruiting study participants: 

• 1. 1.Will the script engage youth? 

  2. 2.Is the language in the script accessible to this population and age group? Will the script effectively inform youth about what activities they would be asked to be involved in as part of the study? 

  3. 3.Does the script need to provide more detail? Less detail? 

  4. 4.Is the script inclusive of a range of experiences and situations? 

  5. 5.Is the script coercive in any way? 

• •I’ll leave up this slide during the activity. It might be helpful to jot down notes as we go along, because we’ll then have a group discussion based on your reflections. We will discuss incentives later in the meeting, so don’t worry about those just yet. 

• •[Do role play activity using handout 1 and leave this slide up] 

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Let’s discuss! Feedback on the script

• •What could be improved? 

• • -Will the script engage youth? 

  • -Is the language in the script accessible to this population and age group? Will the script effectively inform youth about what activities they would be asked to be involved in as part of the study? 

  • -Does the script need to provide more detail? Less detail? 

  • -Is the script inclusive of a range of experiences and situations? 

  • -Is the script coercive in any way? 

• •What effective strategies have you seen for engaging young adults with child welfare histories when inviting them to participate in a study? 

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Focus Group Recruitment

Now we’re going switch gears to talk about our plans for recruiting youth to participate in focus groups. We’ll start with background on the focus groups and our plans, and then we’ll ask you to share your reactions and ideas.

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Purpose of the focus groups

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Youth offered Pathways services (intervention group)

• •What were youths’ perceptions of the Pathways model? How did they describe their experience with it? 

• •What factors helped youth engage in Pathways, or kept them from engaging in it? 

Youth offered comparison services (comparison group)

• •How were services available to youth in the comparison group (Chafee services) distinct from services available to youth in the intervention group (Pathways services)? 

 

Focus group recruitment strategy

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In terms of recruiting focus group participants, we plan to coordinate with each county to identify an effective approach. For example, we might use Pathways graduates to recruit in one county and Chafee workers to recruit in another. Within each county, we hope to successfully recruit youth with varying levels of program engagement in Pathways or comparison services, for example, youth who are highly engaged vs. those who are somewhat engaged vs. those that are weakly engaged.

Now we’re going to use a Menti poll to gather your ideas about successful focus group recruitment strategies. On another device or screen, please go to www.menti.com and enter the code [82 32 03]. [link to Menti poll: https://www.menti.com/ahdgnund5c]

You should see the following question on your screen: From your experience working with this population, what strategies would you suggest using to recruit youth with varying levels of service engagement?

I’m going to give everyone a few minutes to share ideas using the poll, and then we’ll have a quick discussion about your ideas.

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Your ideas for strategies for focus group recruitment strategies: Menti poll results

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Thanks everyone, I’ll give you a moment to look through what other folks said. [Pause for ~10-30 sec] Rosalind: Do you have follow-up questions about any of these?

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Focus group recruitment plans

1. 4.Have Pathways graduates recruit and conduct the focus groups in intervention counties 

1. • -What are some potential challenges or obstacles to that approach? 

2. 2.Invite 8-10 youth per county to achieve focus group of 4 youth, and offer participation incentive 

   • -Does that assumption sound right to you? Do you think response rates might be lower than we expect?  

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Thanks for that great discussion everyone. I’ll now go through some of our other plans for recruiting youth into focus groups and ask for your feedback a couple of quick open verbal discussions.

1. 3.[Animation] First, we’ll work with the Colorado Team to determine whether we could train and have Pathways graduates recruit for and conduct the focus groups in intervention counties. Mathematica would still be involved in the focus groups as well. 

• •[Animation]: Knowing what you know about Pathways and this population, what are some potential challenges or obstacles to that approach? 

1. 2.[Animation] Secondly, we plan to invite 8-10 youth per county to participate because we assume that about half will attend, and we hope to achieve focus groups of 4 youth per county. We’ll also offer an incentive, but we’ll take about that in a few slides so don’t worry about that for now. 

• •[Animation]: Does our focus group size assumption sound right to you? Do you think response rates might be lower than we expect? (Probe if needed: Do you have ideas for how we might improve our response rates, or should we simply invite more than 8-10 participants?) 

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Virtual focus group plans

• •Use a virtual focus group discussion board 

• • -Preprogrammed questions 

  • -Moderator can respond publicly or privately  

  • -Can leave open for 1 to 5 days with different questions each day 

  • -Provide anonymity to respondents 

Based on your experience and knowledge of this population, what are the advantages and key challenges to conducting virtual focus groups?

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Data Collection Incentives

Lastly, we’ll talk briefly about our plans for data collection incentives.

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Incentives for surveys and focus groups

• •Framed as a thank you for completion of the survey 

• •Planned incentives for survey participation 

• • -Baseline: $35 gift card and dry/travel bag 

  • -6 month follow-up: $40 gift card 

  • -12 month follow-up: $50 gift card 

  • -24 month follow-up: $75 gift card 

• •Planned incentives for focus group participation 

  • -$40 per youth (approximately 4 youth per site) 

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Incentives for surveys and focus groups

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On another device or screen, please go to www.menti.com and enter the code [96 37 39].

You should see the following question on your screen: What percentage of the total $200 budget for incentives (per youth) should we assign to each survey? You can use the sliders to assign percentages to each of the surveys. Since this is 100% and not $200, if you choose 25% the dollar amount will be twice that (so $50). Once you finish answering that question, you can go to the next question, where you can share any other thoughts or comments on the incentives, or anything else from this meeting, before we wrap up.

[link to Menti poll: https://www.menti.com/td58gc7vdo]

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Your thoughts on survey incentives: Menti poll results

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Thanks everyone, I’ll give you a moment to look through what other folks said. [Pause for ~10-30 sec] Missy, do you have follow-up questions about any of these?

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Wrap-Up

Thank you everyone for the rich discussion today. I know you’ve given our team a lot of food for thought! [I hate to interrupt an interesting conversation, but I do want to get us all out of here on time.]

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Next steps

• •You: Share any additional thoughts in writing by the end of the week 

• • -Email to Kelsey Chesnut: KChesnut@mathematica-mpr.com 

• •Mathematica: Use feedback to inform recruitment plans 

  • -Summarize feedback and potential implications for our plans 

  • -Share with federal partners and incorporate into evaluation design 

• •Next opportunity to contribute 

  • -Stakeholder work group meetings on initial findings and reporting (summer/fall 2022 and winter 2023) 

  • -Potential invitations for ad hoc opportunities 

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In terms of next steps:

1. 1.We welcome any additional thoughts you want to share in writing. Please email them to me by the end of this week. 

2. 2.Mathematica will summarize your feedback and potential implications for the evaluation plans, and then we’ll share the summary with our federal partners and incorporate it into the evaluation design. 

3. 3.Your next opportunity to contribute will be stakeholder work group meetings on our initial findings and reporting, tentatively scheduled for fall of 2022 and winter of 2023. I’ll get in touch with you before then to schedule it. 

4. 4.We also may reach out to invite you to participate in ad hoc opportunities before then. 

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Any questions

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For additional information or questions

• -Kelsey Chesnut, Mathematica (Stakeholder workgroup questions) 

        KChesnut@mathematica-mpr.com

• -Cay Bradley, Mathematica (general YARH questions) 

        CBradley@mathematica-mpr.com

• -Mary Mueggenborg, Office of Planning, Research & Evaluation  

        Mary.Mueggenborg@acf.hhs.gov

• -Catherine Heath, Children’s Bureau  

        Catherine.Heath@acf.hhs.gov

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