OPRE Sources Sought 1_23_24.docx

ACF-GCS-RFI-EARE

Equitable Approaches to Research and Evaluation Sources Sought Notice This is a Small Businesses Sources Sought Notice Background The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). It oversees many of the human services programs administered by the Department, including child welfare programs and services, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, Head Start, Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) grants, anti-poverty programs, and Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) programs, among many others. These programs provide resources and supports to help ensure safe, permanent family or family connections for children, parents find jobs, young children are ready for school, committed partners build resilient partnerships, communities thrive, and teens who may be unstably or unsafely housed get connected to supportive adults and environments so they can flourish. In total, ACF administers more than 60 programs with a budget of more than $62 billion, making it the second largest division in HHS.

The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) is the evidence-building office within ACF. OPRE builds and shares evidence to inform the effective, efficient, and equitable administration of ACF programs, services, and resources. It does so in partnership with ACF and HHS program offices and through active engagement with individuals and entities external to ACF. OPRE’s role in ACF includes the following activities:

· Advising ACF agency leadership on increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of ACF programs.

· Conducting evaluations of existing programs using innovative approaches, research syntheses, and descriptive and exploratory studies.

· Providing guidance, analysis, and technical assistance to ACF programs.

· Working to improve the quality, usefulness, sharing, and analysis of data on ACF programs.

OPRE’s efforts to build and apply evidence are governed by ACF's Evaluation Policy and the five guiding principles laid out in that policy: rigor, relevance, transparency, independence, and ethics.

The research, evaluation, data, and other learning activities OPRE conducts are in the areas where Congress has given OPRE authority and funds. OPRE’s FY23 Budget was approximately $267M, with specific funds allocated for studying specific program areas.

OPRE Budget in FY23

Organizational Structure OPRE is divided into four divisions, each with distinct areas of work, and an Office of the Director. The divisions are as follows: Division of Economic Independence (DEI); Division of Child and Family Development (DCFD); Division of Family Strengthening (DFS); and the Division of Data and Improvement (DDI).

How OPRE Works

· OPRE conducts its research and evaluation work primarily through competitively awarded contracts as well as some grants.

· OPRE partners with ACF and HHS program offices to conduct work that is relevant to their current needs and priorities.

· OPRE has a strong interest in innovative methods and approaches.

Types of Work

· Most of OPRE’s contracts are for a single research or evaluation study on a specific topic.

· Several contracts support research and evaluation technical assistance.

· A small number of contracts support planning and executing convenings; these convenings can range from small groups to large public meetings and conferences.

· In addition to the few contracts that support OPRE in organizing convenings, OPRE has one severable, ongoing services contract that allows flexible staffing through onsite contractors and another that provides website support around the publications posted on the OPRE website.

Common Tasks for our Research and Evaluation Contracts

· Knowledge building activities (e.g., literature reviews, development of conceptual frameworks, environmental scans).

· Engaging experts, including individuals with lived experience, and other partners.

· External communication activities (e.g., infographics, data visualizations, snapshots, multimedia content, video, briefs, reports). OPRE requires these communication activities to use plain language and be 508-compliant.

· Common activities related to our research and evaluation studies:

· Designing studies for descriptive and impact studies which, at OPRE, typically include RCTs, quasi-experimental designs, nationally representative surveys, case studies, interviews, and other designs.

· Creating the paperwork necessary to secure Office of Management and Budget Paperwork Reduction Act Approval for data collection activities.

· Measurement development and testing.

· Data collection.

· Data analysis.

· Data Security (as governed by federal law, regulations, and standards such as those outlined by the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2002 (FISMA)).

Types of Contracts and Other Features

· In the past most of our work was Cost Plus Fixed Fee. Recently, most of our new acquisitions are Time & Materials, however vendors can expect a mix of Cost Plus Fixed Fee, Firm Fixed Price, Time and Materials, and Labor Hour contracts.

· Majority are non-severable services with an end product of value for each CLIN.

· Most of our contracts have multiple, overlapping CLINs/OSCs of 1+ years.

· OPRE CORs generally provide close oversight, weighing in on draft deliverables and keeping close attention to timeline and budget.

OPRE’s increasing focus on incorporating equitable approaches into its research, evaluation, evaluation TA, and related data practices work While OPRE’s commitment to the ACF Evaluation Policy principles of rigor, relevance, transparency, independence, and ethics remain a constant, our understanding of how to best achieve them requires continuous innovation and improvement. As part of our ongoing efforts to bring new understandings to bear on implementing these principles, OPRE has been working to incorporate equitable approaches into our work. For the past several years, OPRE has been exploring what it means to make OPRE’s research and evaluation work more equitable and how to take concrete steps to do so. OPRE has been particularly interested in racially equitable approaches that explicitly consider the effects of historical and ongoing structural racism on ACF programs and the people served by ACF programs, although OPRE is interested in approaches that consider equity in relation to the full range of populations identified in Executive Order 13985 (Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government) that have long been underserved, including members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.

One reflection of OPRE’s commitment to incorporating equitable approaches is the 2021 update to the Evaluation Policy to include a greater focus on equity (the first update to the policy since its initial publication in 2012). The updated policy makes clear that a focus on equity enhances OPRE’s ability to build evidence according to those principles and, as a result, is essential to OPRE’s ability to effectively build evidence for ACF programs.

Given that so many of OPRE’s research, evaluation, and data activities are conducted through contracts, OPRE is aware that its ability to successfully incorporate more equitable approaches and innovative methodologies into its work depends on the capabilities of contractors. OPRE needs contractors who have capabilities in a range of equitable practices, including –

· the ability to partner and work collaboratively with community members who have lived experience with and expertise in the programs that ACF administers,

· creative and innovative ways of answering research questions, and

· experience in equitable analyses or incorporating equity throughout the data lifecycle.

We believe that small business contractors may have particularly strong capabilities in these areas as well as vital perspective to incorporate into our work. OPRE is interested in highlighting its interest in innovative, equitable practices to potential small business contractors as well as learn more from the field about how OPRE can partner more effectively. This Sources Sought Notice is one of the ways in which OPRE is trying to learn more about small businesses who have capabilities and experience in using equitable approaches to research, evaluation, related data practices, and evaluation technical assistance, as well as to highlight where there might be opportunities for participation in OPRE contracting opportunities.

Purpose and Objectives The purpose of this Sources Sought Notice is twofold:

1) To identify contractors who have capabilities and experience in using equitable approaches to research, evaluation, related data practices, and evaluation technical assistance.

2) To learn if there are aspects of OPRE’s typical procurement processes or practices that have unintentionally created challenges to small businesses in responding to OPRE solicitations and gather recommendations to overcome these challenges In addition to providing information about your capabilities, this Sources Sought Notice poses the following questions:

1) Are there aspects of OPRE procurements that may be challenging for your business to successfully respond to, including but not limited to, format, response instructions, timelines, forecasting, bidding assumptions, and contract requirements? Which of these, if any, impact your decision to submit a proposal?

a. To give you a sense of OPRE procurements, how they are written, and the kinds of information they ask for, please see examples of recent procurements such as -

i. Advancing Contextual Analysis and Methods of Participant Engagement (CAMPE),

ii. Employment Processes as Barriers to Employment in the Lower-Wage Labor Market,

iii. Financing for ECE Quality and Access for All (F4EQ)

iv. Race Equity for Fatherhood, Relationship, and Marriage Programs to Empower Black Families (REFRAME),

v. Understanding and Expanding the Reach of Home Visiting (HV-REACH).

2) Does your company have the capability to support Cost Plus Fixed Fee (CPFF) type contracts? What, if any, problems would your company have in supporting the contract administration of a CPFF type contract?

3) What recommendations do you have for making the bidding process more equitable and accessible to small business, disadvantaged vendors?

4) What recommendations do you have for pre-proposal engagement with the industry, such as requests for information, sources sought notices, pre-solicitation conferences, industry days, etc.? How do these activities affect your decision to bid on a requirement?

5) One of the ways in which OPRE is seeking to incorporate more racially equitable approaches is by having contractors provide staffing that is representative of the diversity of the populations participating in our research and evaluation projects, including staff who may have had direct experience of ACF programs and staff who have cultural competence in working with populations served by ACF programs. Have you experienced any challenges in providing staffing with this kind of lived expertise and/or cultural competence on federal projects?

6) What are some areas in which you think your business has innovative capabilities and experience that would benefit OPRE procurements? How can OPRE structure its procurements to better encourage innovation, creativity, and new solutions?

Capability statement requirements To learn more about your organization’s capabilities to use more equitable approaches in research, evaluation, related data practices, and evaluation technical assistance, please provide information regarding your organization’s capabilities to do and experiences with any of the following:

· Experience in conducting equitable evaluations, equitable analyses, or incorporating data equity throughout the data lifecycle.

· Human centered designed, or other approaches that center the end-user or perspective of those affected by the program and/or research.

· Providing staffing that includes staff with lived expertise of ACF (or other federal benefit) programs and/or staff who are culturally competent in working with communities served by ACF programs.

· Taking into account how structural racism (or other inequities) has affected populations of interest as well as the services and programs with which they interact (for example, histories of residential segregation or historical provision of adequate public resources).

· Designing research efforts to permit disaggregating data in ways that are meaningful to the research questions being addressed, do not harm marginalized communities (e.g., reinforce stereotypes, violate privacy), and help develop a better understanding of different populations’ experiences and outcomes – enabling identification of which groups are benefitting the most, which are benefitting the least, and which may experience unintended consequences.

· Involving, throughout the entirety of a process, members of groups most impacted by the programs or issues being studied and doing so in ways that acknowledge past harms, build trust, recognize and elevate group members’ expertise, and ensure accountability.

· Equitably recruiting members of a community and co-designing projects together.

· Using culturally responsive approaches that recognize and address the impacts of different aspects of identity and different statuses on research and evaluation activities.

· Sharing findings and data with groups and individuals invested in program outcomes in an accessible way, including making data available for additional research (as feasible).

· Organizational efforts to maintain cultural humility, accountability, and a continuous learning mindset while performing research, data support, and evaluation.

· Areas of experience that your business currently has and may be particularly adept at filling.

Information Submission Instructions

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Disclaimer and Important Notes

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Confidentiality

· GSC will add this image1.png image2.svg Organizational Chart In addition to the Office of the Director, OPRE includes four divisions: Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Planning, Research and Evaluation Division of Child and Family Development (DCFD) Division of Family Strengthening (DFS) Division of Data and Improvement (DDI) Division of Economic Independence (DEI)