Consider and take appropriate action to approve the data share agreement between Travis County and Evident Change (Judge Brown & Commissioner Gómez)

Staff Report & Agenda Item Details

Family First, a program within the Office of Children Services, a division of Health and Human Services (HHS), utilizes the Nurturing Families curriculum with enrolled families. Family First has elected to participate in a research study with Evident Change to enhance the service delivery model of the program. Family First staff and OCS leadership have reviewed the agreement and verify that the program is able to fully comply with all aspects of the agreement as part of normal business practices. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the service delivery model as provided by Family First staff.  The activities completed by Family First staff for this agreement will occur during their normal interactions with clients and will not take any additional resources. <br><br>Evident Change is a nonprofit research and technical assistance organization with more than fifty (50) years of experience supporting the mission of improving the lives of individuals through research, public policy, and practice. In October 2023, Evident Change received funding from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) (Award Number 90FA3007-01-00) to conduct a three-year evaluation of Nurturing Families in Texas. This Agreement covers the qualitative portion of the study, which contains four (4) components: a process mapping analysis, a model differentiation process, a measure selection process, as well as focus groups and interviews with parents who participated in the Family First program. These activities will allow purveyors of the Family First program and evaluators to understand the Nurturing Families model better and differentiate it from the Nurturing Parenting model, propose more appropriate measures to capture behavior and belief change in parent participants, and learn about parent experiences of the model. By engaging in these activities, the model will be better set up for future evaluations that align with the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse (“the Clearinghouse”) criteria.<br><br>This agreement has been reviewed and approved to form by Travis County Legal.