Building Data Capacity in Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Grantees: Challenges and Recommended Support
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Building Data Capacity in Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Grantees: Challenges and Recommended Support

OPRE Report Number: 2020-95
Published: Jul 30, 2020
Publisher: Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Human Services Family Support Strengthening Families and Responsible Fatherhood
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Associated Project

Fatherhood and Marriage Local Evaluation and Cross-Site Services Components

Time frame: 2013-2021

Prepared for:

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families

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Key Findings

The study team identified the following as the grantees’ main challenges:

  • Developing procedures and protocols for complete and accurate data collection, entry, and reporting; and accessing and using HMRF grantees’ required management information system (the Information, Family Outcomes, Reporting, and Management system [nFORM])
  • Analyzing data from nFORM or other sources; working with multiple data systems, including nFORM and the grantees’ own data systems; using nFORM’s reporting features; understanding nFORM’s calculations; and prioritizing analyses given the breadth of available data
  • Using data for reasons beyond performance monitoring, such as program improvement, continuous quality improvement, sustainability, and evaluation; communicating findings; and telling the story of their programs
  • Developing staff buy-in for collecting data, building consensus between grantee staff and evaluators, hiring a skilled team to both deliver services and use data, training a team on the purpose of research and data collection and the associated procedures and protocols, and using research and data from outside the programs
The Fatherhood and Marriage Local Evaluation (FaMLE) Cross-Site team collected information from the 2015 HMRF cohort to help ACF better understand their data capacity challenges and to recommend a technical assistance (TA) approach to support future cohorts of HMRF grantees. Drawing on a variety of sources, the team identified grantees’ data capacity needs and developed an array of recommended TA activities to strengthen their data capacity. This report summarizes the team’s methods, the grantees’ challenges, and the recommended TA activities that could be implemented in future cohorts of grantees to improve data capacity.

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