Chafee Strengthening Outcomes for Transition to Adulthood (Chafee SOTA) Project Overarching Generic

The Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF) Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) seeks Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approval for a new 3-year overarching generic clearance to submit individual information collection (GenIC) requests for evaluations of programs serving youth transitioning out of foster care as part of the Chafee SOTA Project. Potential data collection efforts will request similar information using similar methods, which could include conducting interviews, focus groups, and surveys with program directors (e.g., from programs serving youth with foster care experience and from their partner agencies) and current, past, or potential participants in programs serving youth with foster care experience (e.g., including potential participants who are included in comparison groups), as well as extracting administrative or other program data. The purpose of these efforts is to inform ACF programming by building evidence about what works to improve outcomes for the target population, and to identify innovative learning methods that address common evaluation challenges. The John H. Chafee Foster Care Program for Successful Transition to Adulthood (Chafee program) funds state and tribal programs that help youth with foster care experience to successfully transition to adulthood. When the Chafee program was created following the passage of the Foster Care Independence Act (FCIA) of 1999 (Public Law 106-169), the legislation required that a small percentage of funding be set aside for rigorous evaluations of independent living programs that are “innovative or of potential national significance.” In keeping with this directive, OPRE is conducting the Chafee SOTA project, which aims to utilize innovative methods for testing promising practices in programs serving youth transitioning out of foster care, and to improve the feasibility and rigor of evaluations that test the effectiveness of program services or components. The Chafee SOTA project builds on prior OPRE evaluations, which observed that for many programs, traditional, large-scale impact evaluations were not feasible due to issues such as program size, lack of appropriate comparison groups, or implementation challenges. The Chafee SOTA project will conduct evaluations of the effectiveness of program services and components in improving outcomes for youth and young adults transitioning out of foster care. To address the common evaluation challenges previously identified, these evaluations will utilize innovative methods tailored to each program, including rapid cycle learning techniques that require an iterative approach. An important aspect of research with this population and a guiding principle of the Chafee SOTA project is that evaluations need to be designed in consultation and partnership with young adults with lived experience. The iterative and rapid nature of the methods to be utilized, as well as the necessity of ongoing, authentic engagement of experts with lived experience, poses a challenge to complying with the timeline for seeking full approval of each individual information collection activity subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA). Since OPRE knows the types of methods that will be used and types of information that will be requested but does not yet know what will be needed to tailor the information to each site, OPRE is seeking approval for an overarching generic clearance to conduct this work. For each GenIC, instruments will be tailored to the specific intervention and the specific site; once a set of instruments for a particular site is developed, and prior to use in the field, OPRE will submit a supporting statement Part A and B and the specific instruments to be used to OMB for approval.

The latest form for Chafee Strengthening Outcomes for Transition to Adulthood (Chafee SOTA) Project Overarching Generic expires 2026-09-30 and can be found here.