HHS-2008-ACF-ACYF-CA-0044 CAPTA: National Quality Improvement Center on Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect of Infants and Young Children

Melissa Brodowski: Hello and welcome to the Pre-Application Webinar for Funding Opportunity number HHF2008ACFACYFCO0044, National Quality Improvement Center on Preventing the Abuse and Neglect of Infants and Young Children.

My name is Melissa Lynn Brodowski, and I work at the Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, which is housed in the Children's Bureau within the Administration for Children and Families at the US Department of Health and Human Services. I am also the Program Contact for this Grant Announcement.

This Webinar is being webcast at both 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, June 5, 2008.

This Webinar is intended to provide prospective applicants with an overview of the program announcement that became public on May 15, 2008, and is currently available on grants.gov, and the Administration for Children and Families Grants Opportunities web page at www.acf.hhs.gov/grants. To find the announcement, go to that website and click on "Open Funding Opportunities", then find the link for CAPTA National Quality Improvement Center on Preventing the Abuse and Neglect of Infants and Young Children. The direct link to the announcement is also provided on this slide.

The Webinar will attempt to clarify common applicant question by highlighting information in the announcement. All prospective applicants are encouraged to refer back to the program announcement for more detailed information on preparing their applications. Page numbers in the PDF version of the program announcement available on the Grants Opportunities website at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/grants/open/HHS-2008-ACF-ACYF-CA-0044.html have been included on the Webinar slides for your reference.

And Federal staff will not be responding directly to questions of listeners during this Webinar. All participant lines will be muted. Listening participants will, however, have the opportunity to send written questions to The Children's Bureau by email during and after the Webinar. Potential applicants may submit questions in response to the Webinar until 5:00 p.m. on Friday, June 6. Questions should be sent to cb@dixongroup.com. Please include the words "Applicant Question 0044" in the subject heading of the email, and please include your name, the name of your organization, and your telephone number in the text of the message.

All questions received prior to 5:00 p.m. Eastern on June 6 will be reviewed by Children's Bureau staff. A transcript of the Webinar and a summary of the questions submitted by the deadline, and the Children's Bureau responses will be posted on the ACYF Grant Review web page at http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/grantreview/cb/cb.html as soon as they become available.

Webinar slides will also be posted on this web page for applicants' future reference. Any questions that a potential applicant has prior to the first Webinar, or after the pre-application conference question period closes at 5:00 p.m. on June 6 should be directed to the applicable program or grant contact person in the program announcements.

Again, this is the pre-application Webinar regarding funding for the National Improvement Center on Preventing Abuse and Neglect of Infants and Young Children, and this will be referred to as the QIC -- Q-I-C -- on Infants and Young Children, or QIC for shorthand throughout the Webinar.

The legislative authority for the QIC on Young Children comes from two sources; Sections 105B5 of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act as amended, and Public Law 100-505, the Abandoned Infants Assistance Act of 1988 as amended. Information about the legislation that authorizes and supports the QIC, and other Child Welfare programs can be found on the Children's Bureau website at www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb under "Laws and Policies".

It's important to note that there will only be one award for this funding opportunity, and it will be a Cooperative Agreement. A Cooperative Agreement is a specific method of awarding Federal assistance where substantial Federal involvement is anticipated. As described in the Grant Announcement under Section II, Award Information, Federal involvement and collaboration includes: the Children's Bureau review and approval of the planning stages of the project activities before implementation begins; the Children's Bureau involvement in the establishment of policies and procedures that maximize open competition, if applicable; joint collaboration between the Children's Bureau and the award recipient in the performance of key programmatic activities; close monitoring by the Children's Bureau of the requirements stated in this announcement; and close monitoring by the Children's Bureau during the project to ensure compliance with the intent of this funding.

To ensure that responsibilities of both parties are understood, a Cooperative Agreement document will be developed, incorporating legislative authority, Federal regulations, and terms and conditions. The document will also identify the duration of the agreement, roles and responsibilities of the grantee and ACYF Children's Bureau and reporting requirements. The Cooperative Agreement document must be signed by the authorized official of the recipient organization, and the ACYF CD program official. Expectations for collaboration with Federal staff to successfully complete the goals and objectives of these projects are described throughout the program announcement.

The eligible applicants for the QIC on Infants and Young Children include: State Governments, County Governments, public and State-controlled institutions of higher education; non-profits with 501C3 IRS status other than institutions of higher education; non-profits without 501C3 IRS status, again other than institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education are eligible; for-profit organization, other than small businesses; and then small businesses are eligible; and special District Governments are all eligible applicants for this announcement.

If an application proposes that two or more entities serve as the QIC on Infants and Young Children collaboratively, the application must identify a primary applicant responsible for administering the Cooperative Agreements. Partnerships are encouraged between organizations with experience and expertise in Child Welfare, Child Maltreatment Prevention, and Early Childhood Programs. Eligible applicants may apply for a maximum of $1.7 million in year one and a maximum of $2 million per budget period in years two through five. Applications with a request that exceed the ceiling on the amount of the individual awards will be deemed non-responsive and will not be considered for funding under this announcement.

In years two through five, the project will allocate at least $1.6 million to support research and demonstration projects, and dissertations, and no more than $400,000 will be used by the QIC to administer and manage the project.

The Cooperative Agreement will be awarded for a project period of 60 months. The initial award will be for a 12-month budget period. Continuation of awards for subsequent 12-month budget periods will be subject to satisfactory progress on the part of the awardee, and a determination that continued funding would be in the best interest of the Federal Government. Continuation of awards is also subject to the availability of funds.

In terms of the match requirement, the grantee is required to meet a non-Federal share of the project cost. The grantee must provide at least ten percent of the total approved cost for the project during each budget period. The total approved cost of the project can be calculated by dividing the requested Federal share, a maximum of $1.7 million in year one, by the divisor, 0.9. The result will be the total project cost, including the applicant's minimum ten percent match, and examples are listed on the slide. The non-Federal share may be met by cash or in-kind contributions, although applicants are encouraged to meet their match requirements through cash contributions.

Now, I'm going to talk about the overall purpose of the QIC. The overall purpose of the QIC on Infants and Young Children is to improve the social, physical, behavioral, cognitive and emotional well being of children zero to five-years-old and the families who are at risk of abuse and neglect, including those infants and young children impacted by substance abuse and/or HIV and AIDS by fostering collaborative research in demonstration projects across the Child Abuse Prevention, Child Welfare, Early Childhood, and other health, education, and social service systems.

And more specifically, there are actually several important overall goals of the QIC, which are: to develop a national resource for information sharing; to foster a learning network on the issue of building protective factors and reducing risk factors; to prevent child maltreatment for infants and young children and their families; to strengthen family functioning for those infants and young children impacted by substance abuse and/or HIV and AIDS; and to support innovative, collaborative, and effective practices at the Sate and local level that strive to improve the developmental outcomes for the target population.

There are other overall goals, which include: to evaluate the impact of evidence-based or evidence-informed models or system change efforts undertaken through this project; to disseminate the lessons learned from this initiative; and finally, to support doctoral students conducting related research on this topic.

We wanted to share with you some of the research findings that provide compelling reasons for the establishment of a National Quality Improvement Center on Infants and Young Children. First, over the last decade, research in the neuro, biological, behavioral, and social sciences point to the critical importance of early life and early childhood experiences in shaping the developmental outcomes for children in later life. This issue was brought to the forefront in the book, "From Neurons to Neighborhood: The Science of Early Childhood Development" from 2000.

Other research is finding that exceptionally stressful experiences early in life may have long-term consequences for child learning, behavior, and both physical and mental health. The National Scientific Council on the Developing Child at Harvard University has released several reports about the positive and negative effects of toxic stress and other stresses, which is toxic stress is the severe and chronic adversity infants and young children may experience. These negative outcomes have also been confirmed by the findings from the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, or ACE Study, which reveal a powerful relationship between emotional experiences as children and later adult emotional health, physical health, and major causes of mortality in the United
States.

All this research and information points to the fact that in infants and young children who are at the greatest risk for abuse and neglect are a particularly vulnerable population that needs special attention.

Some of the most compelling statistics about the need to focus on children from the youngest age groups comes from our National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, which reports that children ages birth to one year had the highest risk of rates of victimization. There was also a special analysis of the data that was a collaboration between ACF and the CDC, which was released this past April as part of CDC's Morbidity and Mortality and Weekly Report, which found that of the children under one who were victimized, 84 percent of the victims were less than one-week old.

There is also research demonstrating that infants and toddlers are one of the fastest-growing groups being served by Child Welfare and Child Protective Services. This was based on analysis using data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescents' Well Being. And then, finally a recently-released study funded by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation at HHF found that children birth to three years who have been maltreated are at substantial risk of experiencing developmental delays.

And then, finally there is a growing body of research on the effectiveness and cost benefits of early childhood programs, which has identified several intervention and strategies that can help ameliorate or protect against many of the potential negative risk factors for child maltreatment. Some program models that have undergone rigorous evaluations include home visiting, parent education, and early childhood center-based programs.

However, we are also learning that simply identifying evidence-based programs is only the first step in meeting the needs of young children and their families. More attention is needed in order to better understand the factors associated with the successful implementation of these evidence-based programs and practices.

And finally, just wanted to note it's important to recognize that there are several Federal and non-Federal early childhood systems efforts already underway. Applicants are encouraged to be familiar with the various inter-agency efforts at the Federal and non-Federal levels, as they pertain to the plans they propose in their application. Much more work is needed to bridge the gaps across all these related efforts to promote maximum efficiency and effectiveness in identifying and supporting evidence-based and evidence-informed programs to prevent child abuse and neglect for infants and young children.

The Children's Bureau envisions some very specific roles for the Quality Improvement Center, given the environmental context of the various research in Federal and non-Federal initiatives underway. First of all, the quickest charge with developing and disseminating knowledge about what works in preventing child maltreatment for infants and young children. In order to do this, the QIC will explore a broad range of questions and issues about how to improve developmental outcomes for infants and young children.

It will also explore what kinds of collaborations and systems are effective, and identify how these efforts can result in better outcomes for infants and young children ages zero to five and their families at greatest risk for child maltreatment, and how to achieve better outcomes for infants impacted by substance abuse and/or HIV and AIDS to ensure that appropriate services are available to strengthen family functioning. The Quality Improvement Center will need to engage in a range of activities in order to accomplish those tasks.

There are also a number of other questions that may be addressed by the QIC that are of interest to the Children's Bureau. More detailed questions are available from the announcement on pages 10 through 13. A few examples of those questions are: what is currently known, and what knowledge gaps exist regarding the successful strategies in promising practices related to preventing the abuse or neglect of infants and young children zero to five and their families. Another question is; are there effective prevention models that can impact incomes at multiple levels, for example at the individual family, community, or societal levels.

Another question; what are the critical risk factors, what are the critical factors that support or hinder the implementation and replication of evidence-based and evidence-informed child maltreatment prevention programs for infants and young children; how can States and Counties effective build cross-agency partnerships and system linkages to fully address the needs on infants and young children at greatest risk for abuse and neglect.

So there are really multiple levels of questions which examine individual family program, community, and systems-level questions that may be addressed by the QIC. I will address this in more detail in a few moments, but the questions of interest to the Children's Bureau does not mean that the QIC has to address all of the questions; rather, the questions are provided to offer some ideas to prospective applicants about the possible research topics for the QIC.

The Children's Bureau does expect that the research focus for the Quality Improvement Center will be more narrowly focused and narrowly defined within the first year of the project through the planning and needs assessment process. During the first year planning phase of the project, the grantee will work collaboratively with the Children's Bureau to decide how to address these questions. For example, with help from the Children's Bureau and the National Advisory Committee, the grantee will decide whether to take a broad look at a comprehensive set of questions, or a more focused approach; which questions the project will answer during their literature review phase of the project, and which questions it will answer through implementation and evaluation of research and demonstration projects and the dissertation support; and whether to focus its projects on a single region or take a national approach. Applicants must describe the process they propose to engage in during the planning year to refine and define the focus of the remainder of the projects.

As mentioned earlier, one of the key features of the QIC's approach is to foster collaboration and research across the Child Abuse Prevention, Child Welfare, Early Childhood, Health, Social Service, and other child and family service systems. There are a number of ways that this is accomplished, specifically the QICs will: develop knowledge about evidence-based and evidence-informed strategies aimed at preventing abuse and neglective instance in young children, and the provision of services to children of substance abusing and/or AID or HIV-affected parents.

The QIC will also promote collaborative problem solving across selected projects, and doctoral students receiving the dissertation support through the QIC. The QIC will develop and implement early childhood and childhood abuse prevention research and demonstration projects to promote innovation, evidence-based and evidence-informed practice improvements, and the advancement of knowledge about preventing child maltreatment and abandonment, and promoting child and family well being, and promoting family functioning for infants and young children of substance-abusing and/or HIV-affected parents.

The QIC will also establish a national information sharing network to disseminate information on promising practices, and as such, it's important to note that the QIC will become a member of the Children's Bureau of National Training and Technical Assistance Network; however, the QIC will not assume the training and technical assistance and information functions and responsibilities that are currently performed by the Children's Bureau of National Resource Centers, (inaudible) Information Gateway, and other T&T and network partners.

If folks are interested, more information about our existing training and technical assistant network, visit the Children's Bureau website at www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb, and look under "Training and Technical Assistance".

And then finally, other responsibilities of the QIC are to evaluate the impact of the selected projects, implementing those evidence-based or evidence-informed prevention programs, and reducing the risk of child maltreatment for infants and young children. And also, identify barriers and recommend or implement changes in policies, procedures, and practice.

One of the important features of the QIC is that there are two very distinct phases: Phase I planning and Phase II implementation in the work, and the applicant's plan for both phases must be included in the application. I will provide a brief overview of these phases now, and will go into more specific details about the tasks to be conducted in each phase in the subsequent slides.

So basically, applicants must submit a design that clearly and concisely describes the strategy for a 12-month planning phase, which is Phase I for the development of the QIC. Approximately nine months after the award, the QIC much submit a draft Phase II-A implementation plan. This implementation plan must take into consideration the information and knowledge gained through the needs assessment process conducted in the first year. Within one month, at about month ten, the grantee will make an oral presentation to Children's Bureau staff in Washington, DC describing and defending its Phase II, Version A implementation plan. One month after that presentation, the QIC must submit a revised implementation work plan; this would be plan for Phase II, Version B, incorporating the recommendations of Children's Bureau staff.

Children's Bureau staff must review this plan first, and continued funding is contingent upon the Children's Bureau approval of the plan. In Phase II, the QIC will announce, award, monitor and evaluate 48 months' research and demonstration projects. The QIC will also provide technical assistance using its own resources, or through sub-contracts with other technical assistance providers to projects supported under this initiative. And they will award -- announce, award, and support up to four two-year dissertation research awards to advanced level doctoral students conducting the research in this area.

So that's the overview, and I will now review the specific activities that the QIC will need to undertake in the Phase I planning period. So one of the first steps is: a) form a National Advisory Committee that will assist in the following tasks; setting the goals and priorities for the QIC; selecting the focus topic for the QIC; defining research practice and policy issues pertaining to the topic; developing the Phase II implementation plan; and providing feedback on the plan and activities conducted by the QIC.

A second piece will be to conduct a comprehensive needs assessment that describes and evaluates the effectiveness of current efforts aimed at preventing abuse, neglect, or abandonment of infants and young children, and identify service gaps, knowledge gaps, and other issues related to the effective collaboration and coordination across multiple systems serving the families.

Letter c) they should also conduct a literature review that provides a comprehensive analysis of the research and promising practices nationally and regionally on preventing abuse and neglect in infants and young children, including those impacted b y the substance abuse and/or HIV of their parents.

Other activities in Phase I include: d) fine tuning the work plan and evaluation plan. In the implementation phase, the QIC will focus on four years of research and demonstration projects. Therefore, the work plan has to be of sufficient scope and magnitude to support intensive investigation.

And then finally, the letter e) develop a process for soliciting and reviewing applications, and selecting and providing dissertation support for doctoral student research on this topic. The applicant must propose a plan to provide dissertation support for up to four doctoral students for two years at $25,000 each year -- at $25,000 each per year. These awards must support doctoral students who have advanced standing in their respective doctoral programs.

So in Phase I, the QIC must develop and submit, as I said, a Phase II, Version A implementation plan for announcing, awarding, monitoring, and evaluating research and demonstration projects and providing dissertation support. Applicants must submit their preliminary design for Phase II, Version A in the application that presents a clear and comprehensive vision of how the proposed QIC would operate. Applicants must describe the approach and processes that it would use to develop the implementation plan, and address anticipated logistical and administrative issues. As stated earlier, the Phase II, Version A plan is due approximately nine months after the award of the Cooperative Agreement, and then a presentation to the Children's Bureau needs to be made in month ten. The QIC cannot move forward with implementation until the Children's Bureau has reviewed and approved the Phase II plan, and as I also mentioned earlier, continuation funding for your year two is contingent upon this approval.

So now, I will describe the specific Phase II, Version A implementation plan components. Number one, it should include the comprehensive review of the literature developed during the planning phase; number two, there should be a conceptual framework, or logic model describing the linkages between and among: a) attributes of the populations, problems, conditions, and systems, but are the target of the interventions; b) the strategy; c) resources; d) traditional and innovative services or strategies to be provided; and e) anticipated short and long-term outcomes.

Number three; should be an administrative structure for soliciting proposals, reviewing and selecting research and demonstration projects and dissertation support, including the program description, eligibility, application evaluation criteria, and selection process. Eligible applicants for research and demonstration projects, and dissertation support will be specified in these solicitations.

Number four; should also describe the technical assistance to prospective candidates to assist them in proposing projects that meet the standards for research and demonstration projects supported under this initiative.

Number five; should describe the limited technical assistance to doctoral students seeking support for their dissertations. At a minimum, this assistance should involve screening the topic being proposed by the student to ensure that it is relevant to the overall goals and purposes of QIC.

Number six; technical assistance to projects selected for support by the QIC. The QIC will be required not only to monitor the operations of the projects, but also to provide ongoing support, guidance, and technical assistance to assist them in project implementation, data collection, and evaluation.

The other components include number seven; administrative and management structure for ensuring that projects are implemented within 90 days of their selection by they QIC, and monitoring projects and dissertation supported under this initiative.

Number eight; mechanisms performing and maintaining a consortium and information-sharing network, consisting of partnerships with and among sites and doctoral students receiving awards sponsored by the QIC.

Number nine; should be a methodology for evaluating the research and demonstration projects, including ensuring that projects and participating agencies and organizations, collect appropriate qualitative and quantitative process and outcome data.

The other components, number ten; includes the strategy for information dissemination, including fostering and strengthening communication and coordination activities within the National Advisory Group, and the Children's Bureau of Training and Technical Assistance network.

Number 11; should be linked with appropriate agencies, organizations, and resources on the local, State, or Federal levels that address issues pertaining to the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect, including the community-based child abuse prevention, or CD Cap grantees, and the Friends' National Resource Center for CD Cap.

And finally, number 12; a detailed budget for years two through five, which would be allocating at least $1.6 million for research and demonstration projects and dissertation support and showing how the balance, which would be $400,000 or less would be used to operate the QIC.

Because this is a cooperative agreement, I wanted to spend a few minutes going over the expectations that the Children's Bureau has for the type of research projects that the QIC will be supporting in years two through five. Basically, we want these demonstration projects to do the following: to develop and implement or replicate an evidence-based or evidence-informed early childhood and child abuse prevention program. They should also conduct a utilization-focused evaluation and cost analysis to determine the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of the model, and its components or strategies using multiple measures of results.

The project should also produce detailed procedures and materials based on the evaluation that will contribute to a promote evidence-based and evidence-informed strategies, practices, and programs, and that may be used to guide replication or testing in other settings.

And finally, dissertation support provided through this QIC will focus on independent research that may incorporate any of the strategies outlined above and focus on the intersection between child maltreatment prevention and early childhood programs and strategies.

Since this is a discretionary grant, we expect all discretionary grants to be involved in the evaluation activities. The Children's Bureau requires an object rigorous evaluation of this grant project. This evaluation should be designed to collect systematic data to answer the minimum the questions of interest to the Children's Bureau that are selected from those that sit in this Program Announcement, and other questions proposed by the applicants and approved by the Bureau.

The proposed evaluation plan should measure the effects of the implementation of the proposed projects on implementing child maltreatment and improving the safety, permanency, and well being of the children and families served by the projects. The findings from the evaluation should support evidence-based practice, and provide States with examples of strategies that are tied to positive outcomes for children and families. And applicants should allocate an appropriate percentage of their budget to support a rigorous program evaluation.

And now, I just wanted to provide you with some application submission reminders. All applications in response to this Program Announcement are due by 4:30 p.m. Eastern Time on July 14, 2008. Applications submitted by mail must be received by 4:30 p.m., and electronic submissions must be submitted via grants.gov no later than 4:30 p.m. Late applications will not be considered. Applications that request amounts that exceed the stated ceiling of $1.7 million for the first budget period will not be considered.

Application submission information for Section Four of the announcement, and further detailed specific to submission due dates and times can be found on page 43 of the announcement -- actually page 28 of the announcement. The application limit is 75 pages; pages over this limit will be removed from the application and will not be reviewed. This page limit does not include the standard forms, the 424, 424A, 424B, Certification Assurances, Third-Party Agreements, Letters of Commitment, job descriptions, resumes, and curriculum vitae.

We also would like to provide you with a couple of additional reminders regarding the submission of applications. First, electronic submission is voluntary, but encouraged. The due date and time applies to all applications, whether mailed, hand delivered, or submitted electronically. Applicants are responsible for ensuring that applications are mailed, hand delivered, or submitted electronically well in advance of the application due date and time. This does not mean the day before, or the day of the due date. This should include enough time so that if difficulties are encountered, there will be sufficient time to submit hard copies via Express Mail.

Applicants must have a [DUNS] number and register in the Central Contract Registry to obtain authorized organization representative electronic signature credentials for electronic submission.

If you are experiencing any difficulty with electronic submission, you must contact the grants.gov help desk at 1-800-518-4726, or support@grants.gov to receive a case number, which documents the problem.

So finally, just wanted to remind everyone again any questions about the information from this Webinar should be sent to this email: cb@dixongroup.com by 5:00 p.m. Eastern on Friday, June 6. All questions received prior to 5:00 p.m. on June 6 will be reviewed by Children's Bureau staff.

A transcript of the Webinar and a summary of the questions submitted by the deadline and the Children's Bureau responses will be posted on the ACYF Grant Review web page that we mentioned before, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/grantreview/cb/cb.html as soon as they become available, and the Webinar slides will also be posted on this web page for applicants future reference.

And then, any questions that a potential applicant has prior to this Webinar after the pre-application conference period closes at 5:00 p.m. on June 6 should be addressed to the applicable program or grant contact person that is listed on the program announcement.

And finally, we just wanted to say that the Children's Bureau encourages all applicants to be creative within the guidelines of the program announcement, and we wish you all good luck. Thank you.