Transcript FY 2019 TNTG St Innov RFA Webinar (4-2-19) posted 5-2-19 .pdf

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TNTG State Innovation Informational RFA Webinar Transcript April 2, 2019 3:30pm ET Speaker: Franciel Ikeji

>> FRANCIEL IKEJI: Welcome, everyone. And thank you for joining us for today's webinar on the Team Nutrition Training Grants for Innovative State Training Programs. We have a few reminders for you before we get started.

Today's webinar will begin at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Time. You are currently in listen-only mode.

You should be able to hear us through your computer's speakers. If you are having difficulty, you can try a different browser such as Google, Firefox – Google or Firefox, I'm sorry. And questions will be answered at the end of this webinar. You can use the chat box on the bottom left side of your screen at any time during the webinar to answer questions. We will answer as many as we can at the end of thee webinar. Information on the posting of this webinar recording and all questions and responses will be found in grants.gov on the page for this grant under the related documents tab at a later date.

On Tuesday, March 5th, 2019, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service released a request for application, RFA, for two grant opportunities under the Team Nutrition Training Grant Program. These grants will help states implement job skills training programs focused on addressing identified state and local needs impacting the quality of school meals.

Up to $9 million in grant funds will be awarded in FY 2019. There are two separate and unique requests for applications for the 2019 TNTG program. Only State agencies that administer the National School Lunch Program, NSLP, may submit an application in response to these grant opportunities. Each state may apply to only one of the grant opportunities, either the Innovative State Training Programs Grant or the E-STAR Program Training Grant. States that submit applications for both grant opportunities will not be considered. Applications are due by June 2nd, 2019 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time.

As a reminder, there are two separate and distinct RFAs under the FY 2019 Team Nutrition Training Grant Program. The two RFAs are not related and each have their own individual requirements. This webinar will provide an overview of the Team Nutrition Training Grant for the Innovative State Training Program funding opportunity, application requirements, and scoring criteria.

Before we go any further, we just want to make sure that everyone can hear us. If you do not hear us through your computer speakers, please dial the number on the screen and use the access code that is also on the screen.

Listed on the slide are key FNS staff for the State Innovations Grant. My name is Franciel Ikeji. I am one of the Program Officers for the Team Nutrition Training Grants. My colleague, Karen Virostek will also be a key staff in the State Innovations Grant. She is the other Program Officer for the Team Nutrition Training Grant. And our Grants Officer, Anna Arrowsmith, will

Transcript for FY 2019 TNTG State Innovation Informational RFA Webinar

2 | P a g e be taking questions. If you have any questions after this webinar, they have to be sent to our grants officer, Anna Arrowsmith. Her email address is on the screen. And this is per the USDA and RFA requirements that all questions pertaining to the RFA must be directed to the Grants Officer.

Since its inception in 1995, Team Nutrition has provided Team Nutrition Training Grant funds to State agencies that implement Child Nutrition Programs. These funds have supported training and technical assistance for food service professionals on meal pattern requirements and creating environments that encourage healthy choices. The purpose of this fiscal year 2019 Team Nutrition Training Grant for Innovative State Training Programs is to identify and support the expansion of existing state-developed training programs that are designed to improve school nutrition professionals' knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy related to school meal quality.

FNS competitively awards these grants to State agencies that administer the National School Lunch Program. FNS will only accept one application per state. Up to $4 million in funding is anticipated to be awarded for the Team Nutrition Training Grant for Innovative State Training Programs. States may request up to $700,000 under this three-year grant program. This grant enables states to expand the reach of their professional development training for school nutrition professionals, award sub-grants if they choose to support training delivery and the implementation of meal quality improvement strategies by training participants. It enables states to evaluate their training programs on a larger scale to determine if objectives are met and how improvements may be made. It also enables states to receive recognition for grant activities in FNS presentations, reports, social media, etc.

Activities under this grant must be clearly aligned to the three objectives. Objective number one, expand state-developed training programs to increase school nutrition professionals' knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy related to school meal quality. Objective number two, engage school nutrition professionals in implementing strategies to improve school meal quality or students' perception of school meal quality. And the final objective is to increase State agency capacity to deliver training to school nutrition professionals.

This grant supports the broader implementation and evaluation of existing state-developed school meal quality training programs for school nutrition professionals. Proposals should focus on the expansion of existing state-developed training programs that have been piloted or tested through formative research, either published or unpublished, and developed utilizing evidence-informed practices identified in the published peer-reviewed research. This grant does not support the development or testing of a new training curricula or program.

Training content provided under this grant must be designed to improve school meal quality and be targeted for school nutrition directors, school nutrition managers, and/or frontline school nutrition staff. FNS is particularly interested in training programs that include a frontline staff training component. Training programs to be expanded under this grant must also show the potential to be replicated by other states such that other states and school nutrition professionals will benefit from the findings of the grant activities. Through this grant program, a state may implement a training program that was piloted by another state. Additional details on this can be found on page 8 of the RFA.

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These are the types of activities that may be included in your grant: Recruiting participants, training delivery and follow-up, sub-grant awards to support training delivery and implementation of meal quality improvement strategies, the sub-grants are optional, evaluation of training activities, implementation of meal quality improvement strategies, and reporting activities.

Applicants should provide a comprehensive description of the proposed training approach, including a detailed description of all training components, their links, intended recipients, duration, time of delivery, and format. The training program may utilize any format or combination of formats, including but not limited to in-person training or workshops, online learning modules, webinars, videos, web-based applications, or blended learning. They could utilize an educational program that combines online, web-based, digital media, with modules that incorporate more traditional face-to-face instruction.

Applicants must describe how the state-developed training curriculum is evidence-informed and is supported by formative research or pilot testing results. In the proposal, applicants must also indicate the cost of delivering the training per participant and justify their approach.

If a state plans to make modifications to the training program to support statewide expansion, then the proposed changes should be thoroughly described and justified in the application. This includes translating materials, making slight changes to tailor materials to a specific audience in the state, adapting materials to different formats, adapting materials developed by a different state, or making slight changes based upon pilot evaluations.

Applications must include a description of how the training program will allow them to reach rural, underserved, or hard to reach areas in their state. FNS is particularly interested in training programs that will reach underserved areas within a state.

Applications should include a copy of the training curriculum and associated materials as an Attachment of their grant application. This needs to be uploaded into grants.gov and the file size should not exceed 200 megabytes. Please see page 11 in the RFA for additional information.

Applicants can also include – I'm sorry. Applications can also include a link to publicly available online training curriculum and materials. If an applicant is unable to upload a copy of the training materials as an Attachment or provide a hyperlink to the materials, they will need to contact the Grants Officer, Anna Arrowsmith, to discuss an alternative method for submission of the training curricula. The training curricula will be explored as a part of the application and must be submitted.

Applications must also include a logic model that presents the shared relationship among the resources and activities, the inputs and the outputs, and short and long-term outcomes for the training program. The logic model should be one page and depict the relationship between the training program's activities and intended effects. For an example and additional guidance, please refer to Attachment A of the RFA.

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Now I want to talk a little bit about key personnel. There are two positions with very specific, defined requirements for key personnel in this grant. Applicants are required to have a Project Director as key personnel at 1.0 full-time equivalent, or FTE, for this grant. No more than two staff positions can be combined to reach this one FTE. At a minimum, the Project Director will be responsible for administration of the grant, including fiscal management, reporting to FNS, and providing oversight for grant activities. The application should describe the qualifications of the Project Director. Their resume must demonstrate that they have the appropriate educational, technical, and experiential background for the proposed role. The Project Director must have a four-year degree in nutrition or dietetics and experience in school nutrition. Experience in managing a large training program is highly desired. A letter of commitment from the Project Director and the Project Director's supervisor is also required.

The Social Scientist is also key personnel for this grant. Two positions can be combined to reach the required one FTE. The Social Scientist will be responsible for designing and managing the evaluation of grant-funded activities, pre-testing or developing appropriate evaluation tools, collecting data on performance measures, and reporting regularly on these measures. The application should describe the qualifications of the Social Scientist. Their resume must demonstrate that they have the appropriate experience in evaluating nutrition and/or public health programs with experience in evaluating school-based programs highly desired.

In the proposal, applicants must include a plan to evaluate the implementation of the state-developed school meal quality training program. Applicants should describe the evaluation type and methodology, the timeline of evaluation activities, data collection tools, and plans to control for confounding variables.

Applicants must describe how they will ensure IRB approval as required by state and local entities for data collection; track and provide oversight for all grant-funded activities; identify, develop and validate instruments to measure selected metrics, including knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy related to meal quality; conduct data collection at key intervals; conduct analysis of data related to grant activities; and contribute to the final grantee report to share findings related to the state-developed training program's evaluation.

Applicants must propose evaluation measures and indicators that are appropriate for their grant activities as indicated by their logic models. At a minimum, FNS is requiring reporting on the following indicators. The first one is hours of training per type of participant. This should be a non-duplicated count. We are looking for the number of hours of training per school nutrition director or per manager and/or per frontline staff. The next one is total number of participants trained as well as the breakdown of type of participant. Again, we're looking for this data related to school nutrition directors, school nutrition managers, and/or frontline staff, whatever your training program is geared towards. They should also report on the demographics of the training participants related to their school district, the size, whether it's rural or urban, those types of demographics. They should also report the cost of training per participant. As a reminder, these indicators are what FNS is requiring at a minimum. Applicants should propose additional evaluation measures and indicators that are appropriate for their grant activities in conjunction with their logic model.

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Applicants must propose evaluation measures and indicators that are appropriate for their grant activity. Additional ones include – I'm sorry. These are additional ones that FNS is requiring.

The number and amount of sub-grants and their use if the state's training program chooses to award sub-grants, a description of strategies that participants implemented to support school meal quality at a school or a district level. They should report on changes in training participants' knowledge, skills, and self-efficacy related to meal quality, and they should also report on barriers and challenges to training.

To demonstrate a thorough understanding and commitment from SFAs to participate in a state-developed training program, a signed MOU from each school food authority that will participate in the training program must be included in the grant application. The application should also include a staffing plan with a clear description of positions, including any additional positions that must be filled. The plan should also describe contingencies or other arrangements that will be made if a position is not filled in a timely manner. And, an organizational chart that indicates chain of command of all key project entities is also a key element of this application.

Additional key elements to consider. If any conflicts of interest are identified for key personnel, especially evaluation personnel or an organization, the application should provide a discussion of what steps the State agency will take to ensure an objective and complete evaluation. At minimum, a signed conflict of interest form from the Social Scientist should be submitted as part of the application packet. A sample conflict of interest form can be seen in Attachment C. Please follow the application format, including page limits, as outlined on page 21 through 23 of the RFA to ensure that all of the required sections, forms, and Attachments are included in your submitted application packet. This includes resumes and letters of commitment from other key personnel. And note the evaluation of grant application criteria which starts on page 29. This is how applications will be scored.

Grantee reporting and dissemination will be done through quarterly reports submitted to FNS, cumulative annual report submitted to FNS, and a final report submitted to FNS 90 days after the completion of all grant activities. All grantees will contribute to the final grantee report during the last year of the grant. This report will describe all training programs funded under the FY 2019 Team Nutrition Training Grants for Innovative State Training Programs.

The Project Director and Social Scientist are expected to attend grantee meetings at the FNS National Office in Alexandria, Virginia twice during the period of the grant. During this meeting, grantees are expected to present their grant progress and evaluation findings to FNS staff and leadership. Grant application budgets must include cost estimates for associated travel for each two-day meeting. Applicants can estimate the cost using current U.S. general services administration per diem rates for Alexandria, Virginia.

To expand the dissemination of the state-developed training program and results, grantees must submit an educational session proposal, a poster or abstract, to present the outcomes of their grant project to at least one national nutrition meeting as agreed upon with FNS. If the grantee's oral abstracts or session proposal is accepted for presentation, the grantee must send the Project Director or Social Scientist to the conference to present the session. Grant application budgets must include cost estimates for poster printing, conference registration fees, and associated travel

6 | P a g e to the conference or conferences. Because the location of the conference has not yet been determined, applicants can estimate the costs using current U.S. general services administration per diem rates for Washington D.C.

Grantees are encouraged to work in coordination with FNS to present findings from the grant at additional conferences, write and submit articles for publication, provide reports and updates on grant activities at meetings, et cetera. The grantee must also electronically submit a set of final grant materials that are compliant with 508 acceptability requirements. This would be the training curricula and the data collection tools and associated materials with the grant. As a reminder, these grants for Innovative State Training Programs are helping FNS to identify innovative state-developed school meal quality training programs so that other states may use them as a model or a guide for implementing similar training programs. The final grant materials should be in a format ready to be shared.

Now I'd like to talk a bit more about the mechanics of putting your applications together. First, I'm going to cover the timeline. The timeline should be an at-a-glance snapshot of when you plan to conduct the major activities in your proposal. It should be chronological and list the major activities that will take place each month. This will help you as well as reviewers determine whether or not your timeline is reasonable. Asking yourself these questions will also help. Did you give enough time to hire open staff positions? Did you allow enough time to complete all of your training activities? Did you allow time for contingencies? And did you allow time to complete all of the evaluation components?

Unexpected developments such as delays in staffing or a long process of purchasing through your state's procurement requirements can delay things considerably, so it's best to give yourself a buffer in timing and create a contingency plan. We know that things happen that can't be helped and we do what we can to be flexible, but all activities should be completed and all funds should be allocated and spent in the three-year grant period. The timeline should stand alone with actual activities listed. Reviewers want to know what activities you're doing each month, and the easiest way to do that is to break out the timeline on a monthly basis.

On the screen you see just a quick snapshot example of a timeline that would be easy for reviewers to review and see what's taking place each month. It tells exactly what is going on in the chronological order based on the left column and the task or the event that will be conducted at each time period is listed on the right column. Again, I can't emphasize this enough, this makes it very easy for reviewers to see what you'll be doing at any given time during the grant period, and it also allows them to consider how much lead time you're allowing to accomplish each of your tasks and activities.

Now moving on to the budget. In addition to the required SF-424 family of forms that you can find through grants.gov and you'll submit through grants.gov, you need to include an itemized budget narrative in your application. This should be a line item budget in a table format followed by a brief paragraph description for context and clarity. You should use the same object class category from the SF-424A and itemize your expenditures. You should research costs thoroughly before creating a proposed budget request. The more detail you provide on the cost for a specific item, the fewer questions we will have later in the review process. For example, let's say you

7 | P a g e have included a regional culinary training of one of your major activities. In your budget, you set that line item at $15,000 and you don't provide any additional details. There is no indication to the reviewers as to what is covered with that $15,000. Does it include the room rental, the kitchen rental? Does it include food as supplies for the hands-on training? Does it include the cost for the trainer? Does it include printing of the training materials for the participants? Does it include staff time for additional help needed to implement the large training? These details should be considered when putting together the line item budget. It is also a great help to the reviewers if you link budget items to specific activities, and it also serves as a check for you to ensure that each cost is allocated to support the grant objectives. And as a final reminder, please be sure to check your math. Even if you're doing your budget in an Excel spreadsheet, it's always great to double-check so reviewers don't find errors or have additional questions because the math isn't adding up.

On this slide, we've pulled an example of a line item from a budget. The cots are broken down and link to two of the grant objectives. For this example, we will assume that the narrative portion of the technical proposal did a thorough job of describing what Dr. Fastbuck was going to do. If the reviewers can't remember, they can see right here that the activities are described in objectives 1.3 and 2.2 of the proposal, so they can flip back quickly and review it again if necessary. In addition to linking this item to the objectives, the grant writer here did not just ask for $3,000 for a consultant. Instead, they broke it down to the hourly rate and multiplied that by the number of hours of work to be done for this grant. This allows reviewers to look at both the hourly rates and the number of hours projected for the project. Numbers in your budget should be as specific as possible. Personnel costs are another item that is often over-budgeted. Are you planning to hire someone and fund their position through this grant? If so, you should factor in a realistic turnaround time for you to post the job announcement, interview, and go through your state's HR process to officially hire that individual. If the process will take three to six months, don't budget for the full 36 months of that person's salary. FTE estimates should account for the time to complete the hiring process.

All requested costs must be allowable, allocable, necessary, and reasonable in accordance with the OMB code of federal regulations cost principles as follows: 2 CFR part 200, uniform administrative requirements, cost principles, and audit requirements for federal awards, and 2 CFR part 400, uniform administrative requirements, cost principles, and audit requirements for federal awards. Allowable use of funds includes but is not limited to training, sub-grants to local SFAs – again, this is optional – personnel costs, materials and other supplies, technology to document and deliver training, food expenses for educational and training purposes, and travel to trainings.

I wanted to go over some of the program requirements that have an impact on your budget.

Number one, cost for at least one key project staff – I'm sorry, cost for the Social Scientist and Project Director to attend two 2-day grantee meetings. The purpose, again, of these in-person meetings is to allow grantees to present to FNS and share their project successes, discuss barriers, and share amongst their peers. There is no registration fee for the grantee meetings. The RFA requires that grantees submit their grant results as an educational session proposal or abstract or oral abstract to at least one national nutrition conference. Meeting registration is an allowable expense. Grant application budgets must also include costs for poster printing and

8 | P a g e associated travel. The budget must include one FTE for both the Project Director and Social Scientist. Both of these roles can be split into two positions, such as two project co-directors or a Social Scientist and evaluation assistant or a data collector. The sum of the positions must add up to one FTE for these two key personnel. And I also want to point out that grantees need to submit high-resolution photos of grant-funded activities and photo releases for individuals in the photos as part of the annual report. You can use up to $2,000 of your grant funds to procure photography equipment that will allow you to capture these pictures. These photos help FNS tell the story of impact that Team Nutrition Training Grants are making across the country.

Some states may provide sub-grants to school nutrition managers that participate in their training program. Other states may provide sub-grants to the SFAs. Other states may not provide sub-grants at all. However the state decides to do it is fine. For those that do offer sub-grants, the following components should be outlined in your proposal. First, what will your sub-grantee award process be? Some questions to answer while you are writing this section of your proposal are: Will you award sub-grants competitively or will you hand-pick your sub-grantees? What criteria will you use to determine who is awarded a sub-grant? How much money do you plan to award? What are the allowable costs? To help you answer this question, refer to Attachment C in the RFA, Guidance for Interpreting Cost Principles of Sub-Grant Awards. This is a starting point for determining allowable costs. Next, an application form needs to be developed so that all potential sub-grantees are providing the same information for you to evaluate their proposal. This application can be included as part of your proposal appendices. Outline what support and technical assistance you will provide to the sub-grantees. Discuss your plan to monitor your sub-grantee's progress and effectiveness. Discuss how you plan to promote the availability of your sub-grants. And lastly, discuss in your application a contingency plan in case you do not have enough applicants apply for the sub-grant. Sub-grantees should be asked to clearly outline goals and objectives of their project and include a detailed timeline and budget with their application and proposal.

On the screen you see the application scoring criteria. There are five major categories on which your application will be scored. The details of these categories are listed on pages 27 through 31 of the RFA. Please make sure that each element listed under each major category is included in your application. One of the things we suggest is to have someone read through the application and compare it to the list of required elements discussed in the RFA scoring criteria. Having someone who is not immersed in your program read through your application will also ensure it makes sense to an outsider. Keep in mind that the grant reviewers, while knowledgeable about Child Nutrition Programs, training, and the National School Lunch Program, they will not be well-versed in your state's specific programs and operations.

The important dates to remember are April 15th, which is when the letters of intent are due to Anna Arrowsmith. June 2nd, which is the due date for applications. All materials must be submitted to grants.gov by 11:59 p.m. Eastern time. And the anticipated award announcement will be made in September 2019.

I want to thank you again for joining us for this webinar. At this time, we are going to take questions in the chat box. Okay. We had quite a few questions coming in. It looks like quite a few of them are around staffing requirements of the Project Director and Social Scientist, 9 | P a g e specifically around the FTE and education requirements, and then there are very state-specific scenarios as well.

Just to start with answering the questions, the State Innovation RFA was written with very specific requirements and applicants should adhere to these requirements as stated. However, if applicants want to propose an alternative in their application, I'm sorry. If they want to propose an alternative in their application in one of the areas I mentioned or even a different area, they are welcome to do so. The application should include a justification, an explanation of why there is a variation. And just as a reminder, this is a competitive grant process and applications will be reviewed and scored appropriately.

I want to go over a few of the specific questions. There is a question about states sharing their curriculum that they've developed with another state. Our answer to that is if there is a state – if there is interest in adapting another state's meal quality training curriculum and model, they could gather information from the research of peer-reviewed literature and use that to support the model. The FNS State Sharing Center may also be a resource. And then they can also reach out to the state directly.

Now if a state is currently implementing or testing a curriculum or program and their activities are ongoing, that state is not obligated to share the curriculum, largely in part because it's not finished yet. The activities and, like I said, testing or evaluation are ongoing. But if a state decides to share, the application should include an agreement that clearly outlines the roles of each state and addresses the access to the training curriculum, how the training curriculum will be accessed in addition to the evaluation data and other materials, other pertinent materials that are needed.

It is important to note that states are not necessarily scored lower or automatically ruled out if they are implementing the same curriculum as another state. Each proposal will be evaluated and scored independently and competitively in relationship to the grant evaluation criteria that is on page 29 of the RFA. States could propose a collaborative evaluation of the same curriculum being implemented in two states as a comparative case study, but they need to remember that each proposal will be evaluated and scored independently and competitively in the pool of applicants.

We have a question about the administration of sub-grants. And for some of the smaller RFAs, this may be burdensome. To answer that question, sub-grants are optional. They are not required.

The sub-grants are intended to support the SFAs and their school nutrition professionals' participation in the state-developed meal quality training program and support them implementing improvements and strategies at their site. Sub-grants can be structured to support the administrative requirements such as coordinating and reporting because we do realize that requires staff time, but the support given to these activities through the sub-grants should not be excessive.

Okay, we have another question about states submitting the MOUs for each SFA that is going to participate. This question says that the MOU process is very lengthy, requiring legal counsel, and will not likely be done by the time the applications are due. In lieu of the MOU, could they

10 | P a g e submit a letter of support from each SFA? Our answer to that question is for states that have a lengthy MOU process, we will accept a letter of support from SFAs you plan to work with through this grant Innovative State Training Program. We would still like you to reference Attachment B to look at the sample MOU and include that type of information in the letter of support. It still needs to be detailed on exactly what the SFA is committing to. And if a state is considered or awarded a grant, the grant award could be contingent upon FNS receiving those MOUs for participating SFAs. We would encourage you to still start that process of whatever is necessary with the legal counsel to get the MOU. But in the interim, you could submit a letter of support that is detailed on what the SFA is committing to provide or how many managers or school nutrition professionals are going to be participating.

We have a question on wanting a specific definition on what an underserved area means. I'm going to say this as a blanket for a lot of things – a lot of questions you might have that are really state-specific for this particular RFA. FNS is really looking for states to propose to us innovative state training programs. We are not prescribing everything that must be done or needs to be included. And so we are wanting to see trainings that do hit underserved areas in your state, and we're leaving it up to the states to tell us what that means in your state. We realize that might be different for each state. We are not setting a specific definition of what it means to be an underserved area, but we are looking for training programs that hit a variety of audiences in the state.

We have a question that asks: What are the requirements of sub-contractors? Oh, okay. In terms of sub-contractors, I think that's really up to what the state requirements are. We know that each state has a different procurement process that needs to be gone through as you're procuring services through a sub-contractor. We recommend that you follow your state's requirements. I know many of them if you're going to do a sole source kind of thing, you need to give a full explanation and justification of why it's not going out for bids. Or if you are doing the bid process, and even if you're not, I would also just encourage you guys to leave enough room and time in your timeline of activities to procure the services that are needed to implement your training program.

Okay, we have another question that came in. Is this grant taking the place of traditional Team Nutrition Training Grants? I will say again, under the Team Nutrition Training Grant Program for fiscal year 2019, there are two separate RFAs and two separate grants that will be awarded.

We cannot speak to the future setup of Team Nutrition Training Grants, whether it will continue in two RFAs or how it will be set up. We don't know. But the mission is still the same, even in these two separate RFAs. We are providing support and training and technical assistance to school nutrition professionals so they can serve high-quality, nutritious meals for participants of our Child Nutrition Program. This RFA or this grant cycle is specifically focused on the National School Lunch Program. Last year there was a non-competitive CACFP Meal Service Training Grant that was awarded to 38 states and that is how we've supported State agencies administering

CACFP.

Along the lines of CACFP, we have a question that in their state, the CACFP has piloted a culinary training program over the last three years. Can these grant funds be used to expand this training to schools? The answer to that is no. The intent of this grant for Innovative State

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Training Programs is to expand state-developed training programs that have been piloted or tested with the intended audience in their state. You are not able to take something that was geared towards or tested in the CACFP audience and convert it to schools. That's not appropriate use of these funds.

We've also had several questions about formative research and evidence-informed practices, if we have a set standard. The application should demonstrate that the curriculum has been tested or piloted with the intended target audience and has been developed with principles and strategies from peer-reviewed published research. We're not saying that the formative research has to have been published, but the training programs need to have been developed with principles and strategies from peer-reviewed published research. The evidence included in the application should demonstrate a reasonable expectation that the expansion of the program would yield positive results. And as a reminder, this is a competitive grant process and applications will be judged in accordance with the scoring criteria.

Okay. So we have another question that came in about the grant materials at the end of the grant. Does the curriculum need to be professionally formatted or will FNS do that? The final grant materials, the curriculum, evaluation tools, whatever is included in your training package, it does need to be formatted in a way that is shareable, in a format that is shareable, and is 508-compliant. If that requires professional services, I recommend that you budget for that in your application.

Okay. And we are right at our time. I just want to say we had a couple questions on will we put together an FAQ to share these questions and responses. We absolutely will. All the questions that came into the chat box, even the ones I didn't get to answer, ones that have come to our Grants Officer, they will all be compiled, answered, and posted on grants.gov under the related documents tab on this grant page. That's all the time we have today. Thank you so much for tuning in. We look forward to receiving your applications. Have a great day.