Strengthening Child Welfare Systems to Achieve Expected Child and Family Outcomes

Strengthening Child Welfare Systems to Achieve Expected Child and Family Outcomes is sponsored by Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). This funding opportunity awards cooperative agreements for the development, implementation, and evaluation of strategies focused on improving adoption outcomes by enhancing social work, legal, and judicial practices.

Administration for Children and Families (HHS) - Results For America 2021 Invest In What Works Federal Standard of Excellence 2021 Federal Standard of Excellence Administration for Children and Families (HHS) Did the agency have senior staff members with the authority, staff, and budget to build and use evidence to inform the agency’s major policy and program decisions in FY21? 1.

1 Did the agency have a senior leader with the budget and staff to serve as the agency’s Evaluation Officer (or equivalent)? (Example: Evidence Act 313) The Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research, and Evaluation at the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) serves as the Administration for Children and Families Chief Evaluation Officer.

The Deputy Assistant Secretary oversees OPRE, which supports evaluation and other learning activities across the agency. ACF’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research, and Evaluation oversaw a research and evaluation budget of approximately $175 million in FY21.

OPRE has 70 federal staff positions; OPRE staff are experts in research and evaluation methods and data analysis as well as ACF programs, policies, and the populations they serve. In August 2019, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation was named the Chief Evaluation Officer of HHS. 1.

2 Did the agency have a senior leader with the budget and staff to serve as the agency’s Chief Data Officer (or equivalent)? (Example: Evidence Act 202(e)) The HHS Chief Information Officer serves as the HHS Chief Data Officer. In August 2019, the HHS Chief Information Officer was named the acting Chief Data Officer of HHS.

In September of 2019, the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families designated the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research, and Evaluation as the primary ACF member to serve on the HHS Data Council, the body responsible for advising the HHS Chief Data Officer on implementation of Evidence Act activities across HHS.

Additionally, in 2016, ACF established a Division of Data and Improvement (DDI) providing federal leadership and resources to improve the quality, use, and sharing of ACF data.

The Director of DDI reports to the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research, and Evaluation and oversees work to improve the quality, usefulness, interoperability, and availability of data and to address issues related to privacy and data security and data sharing. DDI has 12 federal staff positions and an FY21 budget of approximately $7. 5M (not including salaries).

1. 3 Did the agency have a governance structure to coordinate the activities of its evaluation officer, chief data officer, statistical officer, performance improvement officer, and other related officials in order to support, improve, and evaluate the agency’s major programs?

As of September 2019, ACF’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research, and Evaluation serves as the primary ACF representative to HHS’ Leadership Council, Data Council, and Evidence and Evaluation Council–the HHS bodies responsible for implementing Evidence Act activities across HHS.

These cross-agency councils meet regularly to discuss agency-specific needs and experiences and to collaboratively develop guidance for department-wide action. Did the agency have an evaluation policy, evaluation plan, and learning agenda (evidence-building plan), and did it publicly release the findings of all completed program evaluations in FY21? 2.

1 Did the agency have an agency-wide evaluation policy? (Example: Evidence Act 313(d)) ACF’s evaluation policy confirms ACF’s commitment to conducting evaluations and using evidence from evaluations to inform policy and practice. ACF seeks to promote rigor, relevance, transparency, independence, and ethics in the conduct of evaluations.

ACF established the evaluation policy in 2012 and published it in the Federal Register on August 29, 2014. In late 2019, ACF released a short video about the policy’s five principles and how ACF uses them to guide its work.

As ACF’s primary representative to the HHS Evidence and Evaluation Council , the ACF Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research, and Evaluation co-chairs the HHS Evaluation Policy Subcommittee–the body responsible for developing an HHS-wide evaluation policy. HHS released its Department-wide evaluation policy in 2021. 2.

2 Did the agency have an agency-wide evaluation plan? (Example: Evidence Act 312(b)) In accordance with OMB guidance, ACF contributed to the HHS-wide evaluation plan . The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) also annually identifies questions relevant to the programs and policies of ACF and proposes a research and evaluation spending plan to the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families.

This plan focuses on activities that OPRE plans to conduct during the following fiscal year. 2. 3 Did the agency have a learning agenda (evidence-building plan) and did the learning agenda describe the agency’s process for engaging stakeholders including, but not limited to the general public, state and local governments, and researchers/academics in the development of that agenda?

(Example: Evidence Act 312) In 2020, ACF released a research and evaluation agenda , describing research and evaluation activities and plans in nine ACF program areas with substantial research and evaluation portfolios: Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention and Sexual Risk Avoidance, Child Care, Child Support Enforcement, Child Welfare, Head Start, Health Profession Opportunity Grants, Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood, Home Visiting, and Welfare and Family Self-Sufficiency.

In addition to fulfilling requirements of the Evidence Act, ACF has supported and continues to support systematic learning and stakeholder engagement activities across the agency. For example: Many ACF program offices have or are currently developing detailed program-specific learning agendas to systematically learn about and improve their programs—studying existing knowledge, identifying gaps, and setting program priorities.

For example, ACF and HRSA have developed a learning agenda for the MIECHV program , and ACF is supporting ongoing efforts to build a learning agenda for ACF’s Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) programming .

ACF will continue to release annual portfolios that describe key findings from past research and evaluation work and how ongoing projects are addressing gaps in the knowledge base to answer critical questions in the areas of family self-sufficiency , child and family development , and family strengthening.

In addition to describing key questions, methods, and data sources for each research and evaluation project, the portfolios provide narratives describing how evaluation and evidence-building activities unfold in specific ACF programs and topical areas over time, and how current research and evaluation initiatives build on past efforts and respond to remaining gaps in knowledge.

ACF works closely with many stakeholders to inform priorities for its research and evaluation efforts and solicits their input through conferences and meetings such as the Research and Evaluation Conference on Self-Sufficiency , the National Research Conference on Early Childhood , and the Child Care and Early Education Policy Research Consortium Annual Meetings ; meetings with ACF grantees and program administrators; engagement with training and technical assistance networks; surveys, focus groups, interviews, and other activities conducted as a part of research and evaluation studies; and through both project-specific and topical technical working groups, including the agency’s Family Self-Sufficiency Research Technical Working Group.

ACF’s ongoing efforts to engage its stakeholders will be described in more detail in ACF’s forthcoming description of its learning activities. 2. 4 Did the agency publicly release all completed program evaluations?

ACF’s evaluation policy requires that “ACF will release evaluation results regardless of findings…Evaluation reports will present comprehensive findings, including favorable, unfavorable, and null findings. ACF will release evaluation results timely–usually within two months of a report’s completion. ” ACF has publicly released the findings of all completed evaluations to date.

In 2020, OPRE released over 130 research publications. OPRE publications are publicly available on the OPRE website . Additionally, ACF develops and uses research and evaluation methods that are appropriate for studying diverse populations, taking into account historical and cultural factors and planning data collection with disaggregation and subgroup analyses in mind.

Whenever possible, ACF projects report on subgroups.

Recent examples include the Parents and Children Together (PACT) Evaluation substudy of program strategies and adaptations used by selected responsible fatherhood programs serving Hispanic fathers, and the American Indian and Alaska Native Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (AI/AN FACES) which has been fielded to capture information on the characteristics, experiences, and development of Head Start children and families in Region XI, which predominantly serves AIAN children and families.

In February 2021 OPRE released a brief on Methods, Challenges, and Best Practices for Conducting Subgroup Analysis . 2. 5 What is the coverage, quality, methods, effectiveness, and independence of the agency’s evaluation, research, and analysis efforts?

(Example: Evidence Act 3115, subchapter II (c)(3)(9)) ACF has also sought to build capacity to support culturally responsive evaluation, including sponsorship of the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families and the Tribal Early Childhood Research Center , and development of “ A Roadmap for Collaborative and Effective Evaluation in Tribal Communities .

” ACF also has a new grant opportunity for an African American Children and Families Research Center , which is intended to lead and support research on the needs of African American populations served by ACF and promising approaches to promote social and economic well-being among low-income African American populations, further providing leadership on culturally competent research that can inform policies concerning low-income African American populations and foster significant scholarship regarding the needs and experiences of the diverse African American population throughout the nation.

ACF also continues to support the coverage, quality, methods, effectiveness, and independence of the agency’s evaluation, research, and analysis efforts as follows: Coverage: ACF conducts research in areas where Congress has given authorization and appropriations.

Programs for which ACF is able to conduct research and evaluation using dedicated funding include Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Health Profession Opportunity Grants, Head Start, Child Care, Child Welfare, Home Visiting, Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood, Personal Responsibility Education Program, Sexual Risk Avoidance Education, Teen Pregnancy Prevention, Runaway and Homeless Youth, Family Violence Prevention Services, and Human Trafficking services.

These programs represent approximately 85% of overall ACF spending.

Quality: ACF’s Evaluation Policy states that ACF is committed to using the most rigorous methods that are appropriate to the evaluation questions and the populations with whom research is being conducted and feasible within budget and other constraints, and that rigor is necessary not only for impact evaluations, but also for implementation/process evaluations, descriptive studies, outcome evaluations, and formative evaluations; and in both qualitative and quantitative approaches.

Methods: ACF uses a range of evaluation methods. ACF conducts impact evaluations as well as implementation and process evaluations, cost analyses and cost benefit analyses, descriptive and exploratory studies, research syntheses, and more.

ACF also develops and uses methods that are appropriate for studying diverse populations, taking into account historical and cultural factors and planning data collection with disaggregation and subgroup analyses in mind.

ACF is committed to learning about and using the most scientifically advanced approaches to determining effectiveness and efficiency of ACF programs; to this end, OPRE annually organizes meetings of scientists and research experts to discuss critical topics in social science research methodology and how innovative methodologies can be applied to policy-relevant questions.

Effectiveness: ACF’s Evaluation Policy states that ACF will conduct relevant research and disseminate findings in ways that are accessible and useful to policymakers, practitioners, and the diverse populations that ACF programs serve.

OPRE engages in ongoing collaboration with ACF program office staff and leadership to interpret research and evaluation findings and to identify their implications for programmatic and policy decisions such as ACF regulations and funding opportunity announcements.

For example, when ACF’s Office of Head Start significantly revised its Program Performance Standards–the regulations that define the standards and minimum requirements for Head Start services–the revisions drew from decades of OPRE research and the recommendations of the OPRE-led Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Head Start Research and Evaluation.

Similarly, ACF’s Office of Child Care drew from research and evaluation findings related to eligibility redetermination, continuity of subsidy use, use of funds dedicated to improving the quality of programs, and other information to inform the regulations accompanying the reauthorization of the Child Care and Development Block Grant.

Independence: ACF’s Evaluation Policy states that independence and objectivity are core principles of evaluation and that it is important to insulate evaluation functions from undue influence and from both the appearance and the reality of bias. To promote objectivity, ACF protects independence in the design, conduct, and analysis of evaluations.

To this end, ACF conducts evaluations through the competitive award of grants and contracts to external experts who are free from conflicts of interest; and, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research, and Evaluation, a career civil servant, has authority to approve the design of evaluation projects and analysis plans; and has authority to approve, release, and disseminate evaluation reports. 2.

6 Did the agency use rigorous evaluation methods, including random assignment studies, for research and evaluation purposes? ACF’s Evaluation Policy states that in assessing the effects of programs or services, ACF evaluations will use methods that isolate to the greatest extent possible the impacts of the programs or services from other influences and that for causal questions, experimental approaches are preferred.

As of April 2021, at least 20 ongoing OPRE projects included one or more random assignment impact evaluations. To date in FY21, OPRE has released RCT impact findings related to Health Profession Opportunity Grants and TANF job search assistance strategies .

OPRE’s template for research contracts includes a standard task for stakeholder engagement, which states that “involving stakeholders in the evaluation may increase understanding, acceptance, and utilization of evaluation findings… Where appropriate, stakeholders should have the opportunity for input at multiple phases of a project…accomplished in a transparent way while safeguarding the objectivity and independence of the study.

” Four OPRE projects focused on early childhood programs that serve American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) families are exemplars of using a stakeholder engaged approach at each stage of the research cycle to understand and co-create knowledge: Tribal Early Childhood Research Center (TRC) , AIAN Family and Childhood Experiences Survey (FACES) 2015, Multi-Site Implementation of Evaluation of MIECHV with AIAN Families (MUSE) , and AIAN FACES 2019 .

Additionally, a planned solicitation for FY22, Advancing Contextual Analysis and Methods of Participant Engagement in OPRE (CAMPE), will explore how OPRE can further incorporate participatory methods and analysis of contextual factors into research and evaluation projects. Did the agency invest at least 1% of program funds in evaluations in FY21? 3.

1 ____ (Name of agency) invested $____ on evaluations, evaluation technical assistance, and evaluation capacity-building, representing __% of the agency’s $___ billion FY21 budget. The Administration for Children and Families invested approximately $209 million in evaluations, evaluation technical assistance, and evaluation capacity-building, representing approximately 0. 3% of the agency’s approximately $60.

9 billion FY21 budget.

The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation posts all new procurements in the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) Small Business Customer Experience (SBCX) database, engages in the Request for Information (RFI) process through the General Services Administration (GSA) schedule and the Program Support Center (PSC) Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) procurement vehicle , sends all new work to OSDBU for review, and has provided training to OPRE staff on procurement vehicles that specifically support small businesses with a race equity lens (e.g., minority-owned small businesses, Latino-owned small businesses, tribally-owned Native American Concerns).

3. 2 Did the agency have a budget for evaluation and how much was it? (Were there any changes in this budget from the previous fiscal year?)

In FY21, the Administration for Children and Families has an evaluation budget of approximately $209 million, a $1 million increase from FY20. 3. 3 Did the agency provide financial and other resources to help city, county, and state governments or other grantees build their evaluation capacity (including technical assistance funds for data and evidence capacity building)?

ACF provides evaluation technical assistance to grantees to: Support sites participating in federal evaluations (for example projects supporting Health Profession Opportunity Grants 2. 0 and Tribal Health Profession Opportunity Grants 2.

0 grantees and Regional Partnership Grants grantees); Support grantees who are conducting their own local evaluations (for example projects supporting Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood grantees, Personal Responsibility Education Program grantees, MIECHV grantees (in collaboration with HRSA), Tribal MIECHV grantees , Child Welfare Community Collaborations grantees, and YARH grantees; and ACF staff directly supporting Section 1115 child support demonstration grantees); Provide general capacity building support (for example the TANF Data Innovation Project and the Center for States ) and capacity for culturally competent research (for example the Tribal Early Childhood Research Center , the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families , and the planned African American Children and Families Research Center) Provide guidance to encourage state MIECHV awardees to develop their own learning agendas.

ACF also strengthens the data capacity of grantees through: Evaluation System (PAGES) system for Health Profession Opportunity Grant (HPOG) and Tribal HPOG grantees and the Information, Family Outcomes, Reporting, and Management (nFORM) system for Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood grantees Supporting grantee ability to monitor data quality and performance through projects like Personal Responsibility Education Program Studies of Performance Measures and Adulthood Preparation Subjects (PREP PMAPS) and Sexual Risk Avoidance Education Performance Analysis Study (SRAE PAS) ACF also supports evidence capacity across the agency by preparing promising programs and interventions to advance to the next level of evidence.

ACF has supported this work through projects like Supporting Evidence Building in Child Welfare ; Next Steps for Rigorous Research on Two-Generation Approaches ; and Building Evaluation Capacity in TANF: Implementing, Replicating, and Scaling Up Evidence-Informed Interventions to Promote Employment and Self-Sufficiency .

The latter project will also document the landscape of current or previous evaluation TA activities in human services program contexts, what can be learned from other fields that have examined this question, and what lessons can be drawn to inform future federal evaluation capacity-building efforts.

ACF also publishes resources such as 1) The Program Manager’s Guide to Evaluation to provide guidance to programs planning and implementing evaluations, and 2) the Continuous Quality Improvement Toolkit , which helps MIECHV awardees and others work with local agencies to build capacity in CQI. The toolkit features examples from home visiting but may also be helpful for audiences from other early childhood and human service programs.

ACF recently began work to adapt existing ACF evaluation TA resources and develop new evaluation TA resources to more effectively build the evaluation capacity of the diverse stakeholders that ACF serves.

Performance Management / Continuous Improvement Did the agency implement a performance management system with outcome-focused goals and aligned program objectives and measures, and did it frequently collect, analyze, and use data and evidence to improve outcomes, return on investment, and other dimensions of performance in FY21?

In April 2021, the Assistant Secretary for ACF announced the launch of the implementation of an ambitious agency-wide equity agenda and named the Associate Commissioner of the Administration for Children Youth and Families as lead for the implementation of the Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. 4.

2 Did the agency use data/evidence to improve outcomes and return on investment? OPRE currently reviews all ACF funding opportunity announcements and advises program offices, in accordance with their respective legislative authorities, on how to best integrate evidence into program design. Similarly, program offices have applied ACF research to inform their program administration.

For example, ACF developed the Learn Innovate Improve (LI2) model–a systematic, evidence-informed approach to program improvement–which has since informed targeted TA efforts for the TANF program and the evaluation requirement for the child support demonstration grants. ACF programs also regularly analyze and use data to improve performance.

For example, two ACF programs (Health Profession Opportunity Grants & Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood programs) have developed advanced web-based management information systems (PAGES and nFORM, respectively) that are used to track grantee progress, produce real-time reports so that grantees can use their data to adapt their programs, and record grantee and participant data for research and evaluation purposes.

ACF also uses the nFORM data to conduct the HMRF Compliance Assessment and Performance (CAPstone) Grantee Review: a process by which federal staff and technical assistance providers assess grantee progress toward and achievement in meeting programmatic, data, evaluation, and implementation goals. The results of the CAPstone process guide federal directives and future technical assistance. 4.

3 Did the agency have a continuous improvement or learning cycle processes to identify promising practices, problem areas, possible causal factors, and opportunities for improvement? (Examples: stat meetings, data analytics, data visualization tools, or other tools that improve performance) ACF program areas take tailored approaches to continuous improvement and rapid learning, taking into account cultural factors, wherever appropriate.

For example, ACF: Provides continuous quality improvement (CQI) resources specifically for child welfare agencies and home visiting grantees ; Provides CQI training and technical assistance for Tribal home visiting grantees , Tribal TANF-Child Welfare Coordination grantees, TANF, and Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) grantees ; Is exploring how child care and Head Start programs can institutionalize CQI using a Breakthrough Series Collaborative approach; Launched two learning collaboratives: 1) the Engaging Fathers and Paternal Relatives: A Continuous Quality Improvement Approach in the Child Welfare System and 2) the Tribal Home Visiting Institute (TEI) to implement and evaluate an adapted version of Breakthrough Series Collaborative; Developed a Learn Innovate Improve model that has been used with TANF programs and is using rapid cycle evaluation; methods to help Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education (HMRE) grantees address critical implementation challenges and test promising practices to address them.

ACF also administers Child and Family Services Reviews (CFSRs) to ensure that state child welfare systems are in conformity with federal child welfare requirements; to gauge the experiences of children, youth, and families receiving state child welfare services; and to assist states in enhancing their capacity to help children and families achieve positive outcomes.

The reviews are structured to help states identify strengths and areas needing improvement within their agencies and programs, States determined not to have achieved substantial conformity in all the areas assessed must develop and implement a Program Improvement Plan addressing the areas of nonconformity.

Did the agency collect, analyze, share, and use high-quality administrative and survey data – consistent with strong privacy protections – to improve (or help other entities improve) outcomes, cost-effectiveness, and/or the performance of federal, state, local, and other service providers programs in FY21? 5. 1 Did the agency have a strategic data plan, including an open data policy?

(Example: Evidence Act 202(c), Strategic Information Resources Plan) ACF’s Interoperability Action Plan was established in 2017 to formalize ACF’s vision for effective and efficient data sharing. Under this plan ACF and its program offices will develop and implement a Data Sharing First (DSF) strategy that starts with the assumption that data sharing is in the public interest.

The plan states that ACF will encourage and promote data sharing broadly, constrained only when required by law or when there are strong countervailing considerations. 5. 2 Did the agency have an updated comprehensive data inventory?

(Example: Evidence Act 3511) In 2020, ACF released a Compendium of ACF Administrative and Survey Data Resources . The Compendium documents administrative and survey data collected by ACF that could be used for evidence-building purposes. It includes summaries of twelve major ACF administrative data sources and seven surveys.

Each summary includes an overview, basic content, available documentation, available data sets, restrictions on use, capacity to link to other data sources, and examples of prior research. It is a joint product of the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) in ACF, and the office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In addition, in 2019 OPRE compiled the descriptions and locations of hundreds of OPRE-archived datasets that are currently available for secondary analysis and made this information available on a single webpage . OPRE continues to regularly update this website with current archiving information.

OPRE regularly archives research and evaluation data for secondary analysis, consistent with the ACF evaluation policy, which promotes rigor, relevance, transparency, independence, and ethics in the conduct of evaluation and research. This new consolidated web page serves as a one-stop resource that will help to make it easier for potential users to find and use the data that OPRE archives for secondary analysis.

In 2020 ACF launched the ACF Data Governance Consulting and Support project , which is providing information gathering, analysis, consultation, and technical support to ACF and its partners to strengthen data governance practices within ACF offices, and between ACF and its partners at the federal, state, local, and Tribal levels. Initial work will focus particularly on data asset tracking and metadata management, among other topics. 5.

3 Did the agency promote data access or data linkage for evaluation, evidence-building, or program improvement?

(Examples: Model data-sharing agreements or data-licensing agreements; data tagging and documentation; data standardization; downloadable machine-readable, de-identified tagged data; Evidence Act 3520(c)) ACF has multiple efforts underway to promote and support the use of documented data for research and improvement, including making numerous administrative and survey datasets publicly available for secondary use and actively promoting the archiving of research and evaluation data for secondary use.

These data are machine readable, downloadable, and de-identified as appropriate for each data set. For example, individual-level data for research is held in secure restricted use formats, while public-use data sets are made available online. To make it easier to find these resources, ACF released a Compendium of ACF Administrative and Survey Data and consolidated information on archived research and evaluation data on the OPRE website.

Many data sources that may be useful for data linkage for building evidence on human services programs reside outside of ACF. In 2020, OPRE released the Compendium of Administrative Data Sources for Self-Sufficiency Research , describing promising administrative data sources that may be linked to evaluation data in order to assess long-term outcomes of economic and social interventions.

It includes national, federal, and state sources covering a range of topical areas. It was produced under contract by MDRC as a part of OPRE’s Assessing Options Evaluate Long-Term Outcomes (LTO) Using Administrative Data project.

Additionally, ACF is actively exploring how enhancing and scaling innovative data linkage practices can improve our understanding of the populations served by ACF and build evidence on human services programs more broadly.

For instance, the Child Maltreatment Incidence Data Linkages (CMI Data Linkages) project is examining the feasibility of leveraging administrative data linkages to better understand child maltreatment incidence and related risk and protective factors. Also, in August 2021, OPRE published a brief presenting findings from the 2019 TANF Data Innovation Needs Assessment.

This survey of state TANF agencies was designed to understand state strengths and challenges in linking and analyzing administrative data for program improvement. Findings from the Needs Assessment informed technical assistance provided to states through ACF’s TANF Data Collaborative.

Information from the brief may be helpful to states, policymakers, and other funders in helping to support states in linking data for the purpose of evidence building. ACF actively promotes archiving of research and evaluation data for secondary use.

OPRE research contracts include a standard clause requiring contractors to make data and analyses supported through federal funds available to other researchers and to establish procedures and parameters for all aspects of data and information collection necessary to support archiving information and data collected under the contract.

Many datasets from past ACF projects are stored in archives including the ACF-funded National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN) , the ICPSR Child and Family Data Archive, and the ICPSR data archive more broadly. OPRE has funded grants for secondary analysis of ACF/OPRE data; examples in recent years include secondary analysis of strengthening families datasets and early care and education datasets .

In 2019 ACF awarded Career Pathways Secondary Data Analysis Grants to stimulate and fund secondary analysis of data collected through the Pathways for Advancing Careers and Education (PACE) Study, Health Professions Opportunity Grants (HPOG) Impact Study , and HPOG National Implementation Evaluation (NIE) on questions relevant to career pathways programs’ goals and objectives.

Information on all archived datasets that are currently available for secondary analysis is available on OPRE’s website . 5. 4 Did the agency have policies and procedures to secure data and protect personal, confidential information?

(Example: differential privacy; secure, multiparty computation; homomorphic encryption; or developing audit trails) ACF receives privacy and security guidance from both the ACF and HHS Office of the Chief Information Officer (OCIO). Between these two offices, there are several policies and practices in place to assure all ACF data are protected and all incidents are handled appropriately.

The requirements are supported by auditing mechanisms and a privacy and security training program. In 2014, ACF developed a Confidentiality Toolkit that explains the rules governing confidentiality of ACF data connected to many programs, provides examples of how confidentiality requirements can be addressed, and includes sample memoranda of understanding and data sharing agreements.

In 2020, ACF launched the ACF Privacy and Confidentiality Analysis and Support project. This project is currently in the process of updating the Toolkit for recent changes in statute, and to provide real-world examples of how data has been shared across domains—which frequently do not have harmonized privacy requirements—while complying with all relevant privacy and confidentiality requirements (e.g. FERPA, HIPPA).

These case studies will also include downloadable, real-world tools that have been successfully used in the highlighted jurisdictions. In addition, the project is exploring creating and maintaining a compendium of existing Privacy and Confidentiality laws for use by ACF staff.

ACF also takes appropriate measures to safeguard the privacy and confidentiality of individuals contributing data for research throughout the archiving process, consistent with ACF’s core principle of ethics . Research data may be made available as public use files when the data would not likely lead to harm or to the re-identification of an individual, or through restricted access.

Restricted access files are de-identified and made available to approved researchers either through secure transmission and download, virtual data enclaves, physical data enclaves, or restricted online analysis. 5. 5 Did the agency provide assistance to city, county, and/or state governments, and/or other grantees on accessing the agency’s datasets while protecting privacy?

ACF undertakes many program-specific efforts to support state, local, and tribal efforts to use human services data while