Response to Public Comment during 30-day Comment Period

June 28, 2022

To:

Shelby Day, Chief Policy Officer, Family Equality

Naomi Goldberg, Deputy Director, LOGBTQ Program Director, Movement Advancement Project

RE: Comments on State Child Welfare (SCW) Data Linkages Descriptive Study [87 FR 25275]

Dear Shelby Day and Naomi Goldberg,

Thank you very much for your thoughtful comment regarding the proposed data collection for the State Child Welfare (SCW) Data Linkages Descriptive Study.

We appreciate your thoughtful letter and suggestion for child welfare agencies to capture data related to sexual orientation and gender identify (SOGI) for foster children. We also appreciate the suggestion to include questions related to this in the SCW Data Linkages Descriptive Study instruments. The SCW Data Linkages Descriptive Study aims to gather systematic information on the extent to which states connect their child maltreatment data to other state and county data sets; learn about how any connected data sets are created, managed, and used; and identify challenges states face in linking data. The study is focused on linked data sets, not on particular data elements within those data sets. Therefore, the information collection does not gather information on specific data elements, which would be needed to address your comment. Again, we greatly appreciate the suggestion but feel that the recommendation is beyond the scope of this information collection.

Sincerely,

Jenessa Malin, Ph.D.

Federal Project Officer

Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation

Administration for Children and Families

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services