Submission for Office of Management and Budget Review; Unaccompanied Alien Children Bureau Incident Reporting

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES <SUBAGY>Administration for Children and Families</SUBAGY> <DEPDOC>[OMB #: 0970-0NEW]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Submission for Office of Management and Budget Review; Unaccompanied Alien Children Bureau Incident Reporting</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Refugee Resettlement, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Request for public comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is inviting public comments on the proposed information collection, including proposed changes. The request consists of several forms that will allow the Unaccompanied Alien Children Bureau (UAC Bureau) to ensure that serious issues are elevated to ORR and that all incidents and the response to such incidents are documented and resolved in a way that protects the interests of children. </SUM> <DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> <E T="03">Comments due</E> June 26, 2025. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) must decide about the collection of information between 30 and 60 days after publication of this document in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . Therefore, a comment is best assured of having its full effect if OMB receives it within 30 days of publication. </DATES> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Written comments and recommendations for the proposed information collection should be sent within 30 days of publication of this notice to <E T="03">www.reginfo.gov/public/do/PRAMain.</E> Find this information collection by selecting “Currently under 30-day Review—Open for Public Comments” or by using the search function. You can also obtain copies of the proposed collection of information by emailing <E T="03">infocollection@acf.hhs.gov.</E> Identify all emailed requests by the title of the information collection. <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <E T="03">Description:</E> ORR UAC Bureau is in the process of reorganizing its information collections to create more unique information collections that will contain fewer forms under each OMB control number. This will promote operational efficiency for UAC Bureau by decreasing the burden associated with renewing large collections and enabling UAC Bureau to create more purpose-specific information collections. In addition, this will facilitate OMB review by ensuring the scope of the collection is targeted and narrower than existing collections, resulting in clearer requests. As part of that reorganization effort, ORR plans to move the following forms that are currently approved under OMB #0970-0547 into this new information collection: <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Child-Level Event (Form A-9A)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Emergency Significant Incident Report (eSIR) (Form A-9B)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Non-Emergency Significant Incident Report (non-eSIR) (Form A-9C)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Historical Disclosure (Form A-9D)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Behavioral Note (Form A-9E)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-1">• Program-Level Event (PLE) Report (Form A-10)</FP> In addition, ORR plans to revise the forms as follows to better align the forms with related reporting requirements and processes found in ORR agency guidance ( <E T="03">i.e.,</E> regulations, policies, and procedures), as well as improve the forms' organization, clarity, and functionality: <HD SOURCE="HD1">Child-Level Event (Form A-9A)</HD> • Adjust the dropdown options for the “Location of Event” field to remove duplication and improve accuracy by: ○ Removing “Group Home” and “Foster Home”; ○ Rewording “Community (field trip or outside the foster home)” to “Community”; ○ Rewording “U.S. Interior, not DHS or ORR custody” to “U.S. Interior (before entering DHS or ORR custody)”; • Adjust the dropdown options for “Specify Location” for accuracy by: ○ Rewording options to clarify when they are referring to locations inside the care provider facility; ○ Adding an option for “Individual Foster Home”; ○ Adding the following options to select from if “Community” is selected in the “Location of Event” field: Hospital or other healthcare facility; School; Field Trip; Other. • Add the following fields: ○ Level of Care; ○ Specify Out-of-Network Facility; ○ Specify Out-of-Network Level of Care. • Reword the Date/Time Event Reported to Care Provider fields as follows since provider staff may have directly witnessed the event, as opposed to having it reported to them by a third-party: ○ Date Care Provider Became Aware of Event; ○ Time Care Provider Became Aware of Event. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Emergency Significant Incident Report (Form A-9B)</HD> • Reword the subcategory “Molestation (penetration or touching unrelated to official job duties of a child's buttocks, breasts, or anal, oral, or genital area by a body part or object” to “Molestation (intentional penetration or touching unrelated to official job duties of a child's genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, buttocks, or mouth by a body part or object, including kissing, with intent to abuse, arouse, or gratify sexual desire)” for added clarity. • Remove the option of “UC and UC consensual” from the “Type of Allegation” dropdown field to align with the related regulation. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Non-Emergency Significant Incident Report (Form A-9C)</HD> • Add “Gang affiliation reported” to the “External Threats to UAC” category. • For the “Staff Code of Conduct & Boundary Violation” category: ○ Reworded the subcategory “Failing to report any knowledge, suspicion, or information about sexual abuse, sexual harassment, or inappropriate sexual behavior” to “Failing to report any knowledge, suspicion, or information about sexual abuse, sexual harassment, inappropriate sexual behavior, or any other form of abuse/neglect” to clarify that other forms of abuse/neglect are also reportable. ○ Added the following subcategories to better align with ORR agency guidance: Failing to report a code of conduct violation; Engaging in sexual contact with anyone while on duty or while acting in the official capacity of their position; Threatening a child with incident reporting or behavioral notes to regulate their behavior or for any other reason; Threatening a child with legal, immigration, sponsor unification, or asylum case consequences to regulate their behavior or for any other reason. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Historical Disclosure (Form A-9D)</HD> • Reword the “Abuse Neglect in DHS Custody” category to “Violation of Civil Rights/Liberties in DHS Custody” and replace the current subcategories with the following options to better reflect the types of reportable incidents: ○ Conditions of detention; ○ Disability accommodation; ○ Excessive force or inappropriate use of force; ○ Fourth Amendment (confiscation of documents/property); ○ Intimidation, threat, or improper coercion; ○ Legal access/Due Process rights; ○ Undocumented separation from parent/legal guardian; ○ Undocumented separation from minor sibling; ○ Medical/mental health care; ○ Privacy Violation; ○ Religious Accommodation; ○ Retaliation; ○ Restraints or isolation; ○ Sexual abuse, sexual harassment, or inappropriate sexual behavior; ○ Previous enrollment in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Migrant Protection Protocols program. • Add a “Notifications” section to document notifications made to parties other than ORR. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Behavioral Note (Form A-9E)</HD> • Change the title of the “Incident Information” section to “Behavior Information” and added the following fields: ○ Type of Behavior, with the following options: Positive behavior, habit, resilience, personal growth, skill-building, or another meritorious action/trait; Behavior that merits monitoring in the event a behavioral pattern emerges that requires intervention or support. ○ Is the behavior part of an established behavioral pattern? ○ Is intervention or support required? • In the Actions Taken section: ○ Reword “Staff Response and Intervention” to “Staff Response (if applicable)”; ○ Reword “Follow-up and/or Resolution” to “Potential Consequence(s) of Continued Behavior”; ○ Reword “Recommendations” to “Staff Intervention or Support”. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Program-Level Event Report (Form A-10)</HD> • Reword “Program/Facility” to “Specify Program”. • Add a field for “Level of Care”. • Reword “Synopsis of Event” to “Short Synopsis”. • Remove the category for “Other”. • Reword the category “Death (non-UC)” to “Death of an Adult or non-UAC Child”. • Reword the category “Major Disturbance” to “Threats to Safety” and replace the current subcategories with: ○ Trespassing/Intruder; ○ Threats to Children or Staff; ○ Weapon Found; ○ Vehicle Accident; ○ Cyber Breech, Attack, or Threat. • Reword the category “Natural Disaster” to “Natural Disaster or Weather Event” and replace the “Other” subcategory with “Storm”. • Add the following categories and subcategories: ○ Facilities Issues, with subcategories for: Environmental Mechanical Malfunction Imminent Risk to Safety Maintenance Staffing Shortage ○ Video Monitoring Disruption; ○ Infectious Disease/Health and Safety Incident; ○ Power Outage/Disruption of Utilities (External); ○ Staff, Contractor, or Stakeholder Criminal Activity: Fraud Extortion Smuggling Trafficking Other Criminal Activity ○ Incident Involving Unidentified Child, with subcategories for: Code of Conduct Violation Safety or Abuse/Neglect Concern ○ Code of Conduct Violation Not Involving a Child, with subcategories for: Failing to disclose staff misconduct witnessed on or off duty Failing to self-disclose misconduct occurring on or off duty ○ Unauthorized ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. 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