Evaluation Policy; Cooperative Research or Demonstration Projects, 51574-51575 [2014-20616]

Agencies

• DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
• Administration for Children and Families

[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 168 (Friday, August 29, 2014)]
[Notices]
[Pages 51574-51575]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-20616]


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DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

Administration for Children and Families


Evaluation Policy; Cooperative Research or Demonstration Projects

AGENCY: Administration for Children and Families, HHS.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is announcing 
its evaluation policy for research or demonstration projects as 
authorized by 42 U.S.C. 1310.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This evaluation policy builds on ACF's 
strong history of evaluation by outlining key principles to govern our 
planning, conduct, and use of evaluation. The evaluation policy 
reconfirms our commitment to conducting rigorous, relevant evaluations 
and to using evidence from evaluations to inform policy and practice. 
ACF seeks to promote rigor, relevance, transparency, independence, and 
ethics in the conduct of evaluations. This policy addresses each of 
these principles.
    The mission of ACF is to foster health and well-being by providing 
Federal leadership, partnership, and resources for the compassionate 
and effective delivery of human services. Our vision is children, 
youth, families, individuals, and communities who are resilient, safe, 
healthy, and economically secure. The importance of these goals demands 
that we continually innovate and improve, and that we evaluate our 
activities and those of our partners. Through evaluation, ACF and our 
partners can learn systematically so that we can make our services as 
effective as possible.
    Evaluation produces one type of evidence. A learning organization 
with a culture of continual improvement requires many types of 
evidence, including not only evaluation but also descriptive research 
studies, performance measures, financial and cost data, survey 
statistics, and program administrative data. Further, continual 
improvement requires systematic approaches to using information, such 
as regular data-driven reviews of performance and progress. Although 
this policy focuses on evaluation, the principles and many of the 
specifics apply to the development and use of other types of 
information as well.
    This policy applies to all ACF-sponsored evaluations. While much of 
ACF's evaluation activity is overseen by OPRE, ACF program offices also 
sponsor evaluations through dedicated contracts or as part of their 
grant-making. In order to promote quality, coordination, and usefulness 
in ACF's evaluation activities, ACF program offices will consult with 
OPRE in developing evaluation activities. Program offices will discuss 
evaluation projects with OPRE in early stages to clarify evaluation 
questions and methodological options for addressing them, and as 
activities progress, OPRE will review designs, plans, and reports. 
Program offices may also ask OPRE to design and oversee evaluation 
projects on their behalf or in collaboration with program office staff.
    Rigor: ACF is committed to using the most rigorous methods that are 
appropriate to the evaluation questions and feasible within budget and 
other constraints. Rigor is not restricted to impact evaluations, but 
is also necessary in implementation or process evaluations, descriptive 
studies, outcome evaluations, and formative evaluations; and in both 
qualitative and quantitative approaches. Rigor requires ensuring that 
inferences about cause and effect are well founded (internal validity); 
requires clarity about the populations, settings, or circumstances to 
which results can be generalized (external validity); and requires the 
use of measures that accurately capture the intended information 
(measurement reliability and validity).
    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 such as 
trends over time, geographic variation, or pre-existing differences 
between participants and non-participants. For such causal questions, 
experimental approaches are preferred. When experimental approaches are 
not feasible, high-quality quasi-experiments offer an alternative.
    ACF will recruit and maintain an evaluation workforce with training 
and experience appropriate for planning and overseeing a rigorous 
evaluation portfolio. To accomplish this, ACF will recruit staff with 
advanced degrees and experience in a range of relevant disciplines such 
as program evaluation, policy analysis, economics, sociology, child 
development, etc. ACF will provide professional development 
opportunities so that staff can keep their skills current.
    ACF will ensure that contractors and grantees conducting 
evaluations have appropriate expertise through emphasizing the capacity 
for rigor in requests for proposal and funding opportunity 
announcements. This emphasis entails specifying expectations in 
criteria for the selection of grantees and contractors, and engaging 
reviewers with evaluation expertise. It also requires allocating 
sufficient resources for evaluation activities. ACF will generally 
require evaluation contractors to consult with external advisors who 
are leaders in relevant fields through the formation of technical work 
groups or other means.
    Relevance: Evaluation priorities should take into account 
legislative requirements and Congressional interests and should reflect 
the interests and needs of ACF, HHS, and Administration leadership; 
program office staff and leadership; ACF partners such as states, 
territories, tribes, and local grantees; the populations served; 
researchers; and other stakeholders. Evaluations should be designed to 
represent the diverse populations that ACF programs serve, and ACF 
should encourage diversity among those carrying out the work, through 
building awareness of opportunities and building evaluation capacity 
among under-represented groups.
    There must be strong partnerships among evaluation staff, program 
staff, policy-makers, and service providers. Policy-makers and 
practitioners should have the opportunity to influence evaluation 
priorities to meet their interests and needs. Further, for new 
initiatives and demonstrations in particular, evaluations will be more 
feasible and useful when planned in concert with the planning of the 
initiative or demonstration, rather than as an afterthought. Given 
Federal requirements related to procurement and information collection, 
it can take many months to award a grant or contract and begin 
collecting data. Thus, it is critical that planning for research and 
evaluation be integrated with planning for new initiatives.
    It is important for evaluators to disseminate findings in ways that 
are accessible and useful to policy-makers and practitioners. OPRE and 
program offices will work in partnership to inform potential 
applicants, program providers, administrators, policy-makers, and 
funders through disseminating evidence from ACF-sponsored and other 
good quality evaluations.

[[Page 51575]]

    It is ACF's policy to integrate both use of existing evidence and 
opportunities for further learning into all of our activities. Where an 
evidence base is lacking, we will build evidence through strong 
evaluations. Where evidence exists, we will use it. Discretionary 
funding opportunity announcements will require that successful 
applicants cooperate with any Federal evaluations if selected to 
participate. As legally allowed, programs with waiver authorities 
should require rigorous evaluations as a condition of waivers. As 
appropriate, ACF will encourage, incentivize, or require grantees to 
use existing evidence of effective strategies in designing or selecting 
service approaches. The emphasis on evidence is meant to support, not 
inhibit, innovation, improvement, and learning.
    Transparency: ACF will make information about planned and ongoing 
evaluations easily accessible, typically through posting on the web 
information about the contractor or grantee conducting the work and 
descriptions of the evaluation questions, methods to be used, and 
expected timeline for reporting results. ACF will present information 
about study designs, implementation, and findings at professional 
conferences.
    Study plans will be published in advance. ACF will release 
evaluation results regardless of the findings. Evaluation reports will 
describe the methods used, including strengths and weaknesses, and 
discuss the generalizability of the findings. Evaluation reports will 
present comprehensive results, including favorable, unfavorable, and 
null findings. ACF will release evaluation results timely--usually 
within 2 months of a report's completion.
    ACF will archive evaluation data for secondary use by interested 
researchers, typically through building requirements into contracts to 
prepare data sets for secondary use.
    Independence: Independence and objectivity are core principles of 
evaluation.\1\ Agency and program leadership, program staff, service 
providers, and others should participate actively in setting evaluation 
priorities, identifying evaluation questions, and assessing the 
implications of findings. However, 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:
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    \1\American Evaluation Association, ``An Evaluation Roadmap for 
a More Effective Government'', November 2013, https://www.eval.org/d/do/472, accessed 16 December 2013, and Government Accountability 
Office, ``Employment and Training Administration: Increased 
Authority and Accountability Could Improve Research Program'', GAO-
10- 243, January 2010, https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-10-243, 
accessed 18 June 2012.
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     ACF will conduct evaluations through the competitive award 
of grants and contracts to external experts who are free from conflicts 
of interest.
     The director of OPRE reports directly to the Assistant 
Secretary for Children and Families; has authority to approve the 
design of evaluation projects and analysis plans; and has authority to 
approve, release, and disseminate evaluation reports.
    Ethics: ACF-sponsored evaluations will be conducted in an ethical 
manner and safeguard the dignity, rights, safety, and privacy of 
participants. ACF-sponsored evaluations will comply with both the 
spirit and the letter of relevant requirements such as regulations 
governing research involving human subjects.

Mark H. Greenberg,
Acting Assistant Secretary for Children and Families.
[FR Doc. 2014-20616 Filed 8-28-14; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4184-79-P