Tribal Victim Services Set-Aside Program Performance Measures Webinar

Tina Dimachkieh: Thank you for joining us for today's session for Tribal Victim Service Set-Aside grantees with OVC Federal Awards from FY '22 and forward. This is our performance measurement training, where we will be discussing all things related to performance reporting on your OVC awards. 

For today's session, we are going to be reviewing performance reporting at the OVC level, and what reporting means to OVC and why it is important. We then will dive right into speaking about the reporting systems that our Tribal grantees are responsible for using, the types of reports, and the deadlines. We then will move over to discussing the performance measures themselves, and the semiannual narratives that are completed directly in the PMT platform. 

And after that, we will focus on the MMIP supplemental measures in JustGrants, and we'll go through the two-step semi-annual reporting process that grantees need to follow in order to properly submit the performance reports. And then, at the end of the session, we will provide some resources, and contact information; so, you can contact us if you have any questions regarding any of the information shared here today. 

So, why is performance measure reporting important to OVC, and why should you report in a timely and accurate fashion? It is important because the data that you all as grantees provide to OVC, helps us demonstrate the value, and the specific benefits of our different programs to Congress, to federal and state government agencies, to the victim services field in general, and the general public, and any other stakeholders. 

We're also able to use the data to generate annual reports on different programs, to demonstrate output of grant funding, and to also advocate for additional funding. We're also able to emphasize progress made towards achievement of OVC's strategic and program goals, and different OVC grant goals as well, and we're also able to reach the target audience of grantees, federal partners and agencies, and the general public to speak about victim services, and the need for additional funding. 

Our team, the Performance Management Team, has been able to create different resources based on the data that's been provided by our Tribal grantees and all of OVC's grantees across different programs, and we've been able to develop data reports that speak to specific demographics, specific crime types, specific services, we've been able to create topical snapshots, and also create data collection tools, and update our measures in order to benefit our grantees. And all of that has been possible because our grantees have reported accurately and on time. TVSSA grantees have to report in two different reporting platforms. 

Those two different reporting platforms are: the Performance Measurement Tool, the PMT, and the Justice Grants System that you all are familiar with as "JustGrants." The PMT is a web-based reporting system where grantees can electronically submit qualitative and quantitative program performance data, and the JustGrants system is the larger grants management system that provides applicants and grantees with an end-to-end experience throughout key parts of the grant management lifecycle. 

For purposes of performance reporting, we utilize JustGrants in a limited capacity, but we will be chatting about that here today. There are three different types of reports that our grantees are responsible for. There's a quantitative performance measure report. This performance measure report is completed on a quarterly basis. It's where our grantees complete the standard performance measure data that speak to OVC-funded program activities that were completed in a specific quarter, and this data is entered directly into the PMT every reporting period. 

The second type of report is a semi-annual narrative report. This report, in addition to the quarterly data that grantees complete, is where they are also responsible for narrative questions, where they speak to grantee and sub-grantee activity, as it relates to their goals and objectives for their grant. 

The third type of report is a final, or close-out report. This is a report that is submitted at the end of a grant period when the grantee has reached the end date of their award, or when all the OVC funding has been suspended, and it includes the qualitative and quantitative data that's aggregated over the life of the award into one final report. 

Our OVC performance requirements follow the federal fiscal year, and we have four different quarters for reporting. As you see on the screen, here, our federal year starts on October 1st, and ends on September 30th. And there are 90 days of reporting in each quarter, between October and December, January and March, April and June, July and September. Grantees have 30 days to complete reporting after a specific quarter has closed, and dependent on the quarter, there's different reports or different measures that are required of our Tribal grantees. 

As you see, here, for the first quarter of reporting, grantees are responsible for the performance measures, the quantitative performance measures, which are the numbers, in addition to narrative questions, which are the qualitative data that grantees are providing. Grantees are also responsible for uploading their performance reports into the JustGrants system. 

And you'll see on the screen, some quarters grantees are only responsible for performance measures such as the April reporting period, and the October reporting period, and then others are responsible for both the performance measures and the narrative questions, and they are also responsible for uploading to JustGrants. Those requirements are for January and July reporting. So, every 6 months, there's semi-annual portion, which is the narrative question piece that grantees are responsible for. 

All of our grantees have access to the Performance Measurement Tool as soon as they receive an OVC award, and they accept their OVC award, and they have reached their first reporting period on their OVC award. That means that if you received an award as an organization between October and December of a fiscal year, by the January reporting period, you will have access to the Performance Measurement Tool, and your organization will have an account created by our OVC PMT Helpdesk, in order to access the PMT and complete the reporting. The link to use is ojpsso.ojp.gov. 

All grantees receive a welcome email from our team, with instructions on first-time reporting, and each grantee has an account created for them by the PMT team where initial access is granted to the organization's point of contact. That is the individual listed in JustGrants as the grant award administrator. The grant award administrator is not the individual that's completing reporting, or responsible for completing reporting. Grantees have the ability to add additional users in the PMT, and we will be speaking about that, here, in a moment. 

Access is granted to an individual from the OVC PMT Helpdesk. That individual will receive an auto-generated email from the OVC PMT Helpdesk, with initial login instructions, and a link that directs them directly to the PMT platform. 

If an organization has multiple OVC awards under multiple programs, they will need to locate the tab that is specific for their TVSSA award, and that would be listed under the "Transforming Victim Services" tab. Within the PMT, there are different tabs that you can access through the navigation menu. That's that orange menu at the top. The tabs are the "OVC PMT Home" tab. That includes general information about the award and reporting; and also, it includes the reporting schedule, which is what I just showed you on the screen a few slides ago. That includes the different quarters, and what is due in each quarter, and whether grantees are responsible for uploading to JustGrants in that specific quarter or not. 

The "Administration" tab includes details about the federal awards. It's all available on one screen for you all. If you have multiple awards, or if you have just one award, you can access that tab. And there's also a sub tab for user information. This is where our grantees can go to add additional users. 

The "Profile" tab includes contact information for the organization, and the organization's point of contact, as well as the OVC grant manager that has oversight of the award, and information about the different awards that that organization has. The "Profile" tab is the default tab that the system directs you to when you first log into your profile in the system. 

The "Enter Data" tab is the tab that you will be accessing every quarter, in order to enter your performance measures into the system and submit your reports. 

The "Reports" tab is where you can access current and past reports, and see the status and who submitted the reports and when the reports were submitted, and also generate the semiannual PDF document to upload to JustGrants. We will be showing you that process. That is the two-step process that takes place in the "Reports" tab. 

And there's the "Need Help" tab. This is where you will have access to a link to our webpage, with our different resources around the PMT, and the use of the PMT. 

And then there's that "Logout" tab at the end. So, that helps you log out of the system. The system itself will log out after 30 minutes of inactivity. So, if you do not look at the system, or you're working on something else, the system will log you out, and you'll have to log back in after 30 minutes. 

In order to add additional users, there is no limit on how many users you can add. You will just need to go over to the "Administration" tab, and hover over that tab for the "User Management" tab to appear. You will then select the "User Management" tab, and a list of current users will become available to you, and at the bottom of that list, there is a button that you can select to "Add a New User." 

In order to add a new user, you will need to have a first and last name, an email address, and a phone number. Once you complete that form, and submit it, that individual will receive that auto-generated email from the OVC PMT Helpdesk. Again, anybody that needs access to the system can get access to the system, but please make sure that you monitor this list of current users in case anybody no longer needs access, or is no longer employed by the organization, or has moved on to different grant works, that they are deleted from the organization's profile as a user. 

Okay, so, for Performance Measures and Semiannual Narrative Questions. Our TVSSA grantees are responsible for different question sets, as you see on the screen, here. OVC has multiple performance measures that we collect data on; however, we assign measures based on solicitations for our grantees, and the TVSSA solicitation is responsible for the measures on the screen, here. We have Grant Activity, Collaborative Partnerships, Strategic Planning, Victim Services, Partnerships as a Shared Measure, Planning Activities, Policy and Procedure Changes, Semiannual Narrative Questions, and Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Supplemental Measures. OVC grantees should collect data only on grant activities; meaning, only on OVC-funded activities that have been completed over a reporting period. 

We understand that organizations are completing multiple different levels of work, and tasks, and activities. However, we're only looking for OVC-funded activities to be reported into the PMT and into JustGrants. Any activity that's been completed with any other funding sources, should not be added to the data that's collected for your specific OVC award. Also, if you have multiple OVC awards, you need to be ensuring that the data is not duplicated, and that you're only reporting on specific tasks that have been completed with specific OVC-funded awards, and not mixing the data across different funding streams. 

Even if you have not used OVC funding, you will still be required to complete reporting for a reporting period, and we will be discussing that in a few moments, here. 

The types of questions that OVC grantees are responsible for, are on the screen, here. 

The first question would, the type of question would be the baseline questions. These questions are included in some of our question sets. And the baseline questions are there with the intent to collect information about activities that occurred prior to the grant becoming operational. The baseline data will help us establish, or gauge, activity over the life of the award, based on what was happening prior to the award becoming operational. Baseline question data should be entered only once, in the beginning of a report; or, in the first reporting period of an award, and that data does not change over time because it is reported based on activity that took place before any grant funding became available. 

The second type of questions that grantees are responsible for would be the current reporting questions. These are the questions that grantees are completing every quarter, and every semiannual reporting period. They speak to the qualitative and quantitative information about grant activity that takes place during that specific quarter that the grantee is completing reporting for. 

Semiannual narrative questions are a series of questions. There's eight of them, and they are open-ended essay type questions that are completed around the grantee, and sub-grantee-funded activity that took place over next semiannual period, which is a 6-month period of grant activity. This is where grantees have the chance to really explain to OVC what has happened over the past 6 months, and what is going to happen over the 26 months of grant activity. I will be speaking to the different narrative questions later on in our session. Now, we will go into looking at the different question sets. 

The Grant Activity question set is a required question set of all of our grantees, and two questions appear in that question set. The first question is asking if this is the last reporting period during which the award will have data to report on. This question should only be answered with a "Yes" if a grantee is entering a closeout, if they've reached the end date of their award, or if they've suspended all their OVC funding, and they no longer will be completing any OVC-funded activities in any other quarters. 

So, if you are a brand new OVC grantee, or if you are in the middle of a life cycle of your award, your answer to this first question should always be a "No." 

The second question is a very important one, and it asks about grant activity during the reporting period. "Grant activity" means that was there any funding sent during the reporting period with OVC funds? Were there any OVC funds used over the reporting period, and any OVC funded activities completed? If the answer is "Yes," we will then move on to completing the additional question sets. But, if the answer is "No," you have not used any OVC funding during a specific recording period, whether it's because you are a brand new grantee that's now getting started on the work, or whether there is a budget modification that you are waiting on approval for, or an extension, or staffing requirements, there could be plenty of reasons as to why you have not completed grant activities, or used any OVC funding, you would just need to indicate that. 

And if you have not used OVC funding, you do not need to provide additional data to OVC from the questions that are assigned to your award. But, you do still have a responsibility to complete reporting, and respond to these two questions, in order to fulfill the requirement for your reporting under your OVC award. 

The second questions that we are going to look at, is the Collaborative Partnerships question set. And this question set does include a baseline question that asks about collaborative partnerships prior to the award becoming operational. Grantees are responsible for providing information on partner organizations that are participating in the initiative as a result of OVC grant funding. based on the funding provided by OVC, additional partner organizations were able to join the grantee in completing work together. 

The data that grantees are responsible for providing is on new groups, organizations, and agencies that are participating during that specific reporting period; and the total number of groups, organizations, and agencies that are participating during that period; in addition to any new organizations. 

Next, we have the Strategic Planning question set. For this question set, grantees are responsible for providing information on any planning documents that were completed during the reporting period. As you see on the screen, here, there are multiple options for what planning documents could be, such as mission and vision statements, you know, MOUs, any types of assessments, logic models, action plans, evaluations, sustainability plans, and data collection plans, or SOPs. So, you would list out any number of planning documents that were completed during a specific reporting period. 

Next, we have the Victim Services question set, and this is for our grantees that are completing direct victim services, or providing direct victims services using OVC grant funding. This question set includes data. Grantees are responsible for providing data on the number of victims that were served by the organization using OVC grant funds within that specific reporting period, the number of victims that were new, and the demographics of those individuals. 

The demographics are race and ethnicity, gender, and age. The number of underserved individuals or victims, and the types of services provided, and the number of occurrences for each service in the subcategory. The different subcategories for the direct services are Information and Referral, Personal Advocacy and Accompaniment, Emotional Support and Safety Services, Shelter and Housing Services, Criminal and Civil Justice System Assistance. Within these subcategories, we have different, more specified services, and we ask for the number of occurrences of those services over that reporting period based on the number of individuals served within that reporting period. 

The next question set is a Partnerships question set, which is considered a shared measure. And for this specific shared measure, grantees are responsible for providing information on any formalized collaboration agreements that were delivered or developed, or letters of support received that were funded as part of the agreement, that were funded as part of the OVC award. Formalized agreements must be signed by heads of organization with authority to commit resources such as time, dollars, staff, and facilities. Whereas, letters of support lend organizational support but they do not commit any resources from that specific organization that signed a letter of support. 

The information that grantees are responsible for providing, or the data collected, should be around the number of formalized agreements developed, the number of letters of support secured, and the level of involvement of the different partners that have been involved for that specific reporting period. This specific question set also has a baseline question asking for the different agreements and letters of support that were in place prior to the OVC award becoming operational. 

Next, we have another shared measure, and that's the Planning Activities, Policy and Procedural Changes shared measure, where grantees are asked about any planning activities that took place, or any policies or procedures that were created, amended, or were signed during the reporting period. And the data that should be collected and provided, is on planning activities, and policies and procedures. Once grantees complete all the question sets, the system will then direct them to the narrative questions on a semiannual basis. 

So, every other quarter, grantees are responsible for completing these narrative questions to speak to the OVC-funded activities that took place over the prior 6 months, and the upcoming 6 months. Within the question, within the narrative questions, grantees should describe any conditions that affected their goals and objectives. They're also responsible for speaking about the progress, or the status, of their goals and objectives for their OVC award. 

They're asked about any technical assistance that OVC can address, or can provide to address any problems, delays, or adverse conditions or challenges. They're also asked to indicate if the agency is on track fiscally and programmatically to complete the award activities within a specific timeline and within the budget. 

They're expected to describe any significant developments that took place over that specific reporting period, and again, speak to the goals and objectives over the next 6 months to the best of their ability, and indicate if the program is sustainable after the federal funding no longer is available. There's also questions about subgrantee activity, if a grantee has any subrecipients of OVC funding that they are working with. 

The semiannual narrative questions are extremely important, and making sure that the responses are comprehensive and as transparent as possible, will not only help OVC grant managers better understand what is happening at the organization, and at the local level within their organization's community that they are serving, but it all also helps OVC better understand what is happening with the OVC funding for that specific program across different organizations, and be able to relate different similarities and any other areas that require additional support and funding across different organizations. And this is really where organizations can tell their story, and speak to the incredible work that they are completing, and be able to brag and share, and highlight any success stories, areas of improvement in their organization. 

The next performance measures that we will be discussing, are the Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons supplemental measures that are completed in JustGrants. These measures are new to our TVSSA grantees. These are the newest measures that we've added, and there are supplemental measures where we were asking for data around grant activity that Tribes and organizations have been able to complete with the new, approved OVC funding for grant programs that are helping or working with MMIP victims and individuals, and family members. 

Those organizations that have been approved to use funding on MMIP activities can now provide services to family members of MMIP victims with the OVC funds that they have. They can also use the funds to generate awareness of MMIP among community members in general, as well as individual MMIP cases, and they can use funding to collaborate with federal, Tribal, and state and local officials to respond to MMIP cases. Again, these supplemental measures are pretty new, and January 2024 is the first reporting period where our grantees are responsible for completing reporting in JustGrants on these specific measures with funding used. We also have made the measures, the supplemental measures, available on our webpage, and I'll speak more to our webpage and our resources later in our session. 

MMIP grant activity grantees should be tracking grant activity around providing any advocacy or other services to MMIP family members, conducting outreach events and other activities to educate the community about MMIP issues in general, producing any billboards, flyers, place cards, and any other resources to generate awareness, and also supporting private searches for missing persons when law enforcement is unavailable, and providing financial assistance to support burial costs for victims of homicide. For the specific performance measures themselves, grantees are responsible for providing data on any grant-funded services of family members of MMIP, the number of family members who've received direct services, and the number of times each of the below services, or the available services were provided. 

And again, the services are awareness of individual missing persons cases through the different outreach efforts, support of private searches for missing persons, assistance with reunification costs, including the different items listed on the screen, here, and conducting outreach events to spread awareness about MMIP persons amongst the community. Again, these are new measures, and they are reported directly in JustGrants, different than what the other PMT measures that we've asked grantees to complete over the past quarters. And this new process will take some time, and some adjustment, but we are here to assist, and the JustGrants team is also here to assist with this new process in completing reporting. Again, the measures are located directly in the JustGrants platform. 

To get to the measures, grantees will need to go to the "Performance Management" tab under the "Federal Awards Information," and they'll need to locate the specific progress report, and that is listed as a "PR" with a number attached to it. Once they locate that specific PR, they will then select the PR, and the system will direct them to opening up that PR page. Within the PR page, when the grantees locate the performance measure question set, as you see in the circled on the screen here, they'll be able to select on that question set link, and be directed to the performance measures themselves. 

There's an "Overview" screen that explains the measures, and speaks to when the measures are due. Again, these are semiannual measures, so, they are reported on every 6 months in JustGrants when grantees are responsible for reporting on semiannual reports. That is in January and in July only, and this overview explains that to our grantees. After reviewing the overview, grantees will then begin or continue, with completing their performance measure reporting, and then they will be directed to the MMIP grant activities piece. 

If grantees have provided any grant-funded services to MMIP individuals or family members, they will select, "Yes." If not, they will select, "No," and submit their report. Once a grantee selects, "Yes," the system will then unlock additional questions to be answered, and those are the questions around the numbers of services provided, and the number of appearances of each service, and the number of individuals that receive the service. Once the data is entered into this page, the system grantee will then select the "Finish" button in order to save their data, and complete their question sets in JustGrants directly. Once that takes place, you will then be directed back to the "Progress Report" page to complete progress reporting or semiannual reporting for that specific reporting period. 

So, that leads us to the two-step semiannual reporting process that we are going to cover next. The two-step semiannual reporting process is called a two-step process because it involves the two systems for reporting. It involves the PMT and JustGrants in order for grantees to complete reporting appropriately. The first step in the two-step process is logging into the PMT, and locating that semi-annual report. The way to locate the semi-annual report, is once a grantee logs into the PMT, they will then go to the tab for the reports, the "Reports" tab. Once they select the "Reports" tab, they will then select the federal award that they are working on performance reporting for. Once that award is selected, they will scroll down to the latest reporting period that they are completing, and click on the link labeled "Semi-Annual PDF." The semi-annual PDF link will only be available for every other reporting period, because the reporting periods reflects quarterly reports, and the semi-annual report is based on 6 months of activity. 

So, every other quarter we'll have a semi-annual report. That's for January and July reporting, as you see on the screen here. Once the grantee clicks on the link labeled "Semi-Annual PDF" for that specific reporting period, the system will then generate that PDF, the Semi-annual PMP PDF that includes two quarters of data. And that represents the reporting period that the grantee is completing at the semi-annual level, which is the 6 months grant activity period. Once that report is generated, the grantee will then need to save that report to their computer, whether in the desktop, or any specific file that they can locate. Then they will need to log into the JustGrants platform and locate the progress report for that specific reporting period, and then upload the PDF that they had downloaded from the PMT into the JustGrants PR as an attachment in the attachment section. 

So, what it looks like in JustGrants, is once you've completed your question set for MMIP, you will then scroll a little further down in the page, and you will locate the "Attachment" section, as you see on the screen, here in the bottom left-hand corner, and you will select the attachment. You'll find the attachment from your computer and add it to the report, and then you will have completed the question set, and completed an attachment as you see on the screen, here, and then you will hit "Submit" in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen. Once you do so, that progress report will be completed, and you will have completed your reporting requirements for that specific semiannual reporting period, and completed that two-step process. 

With that, I will move on to our contact information and providing some resources; so, you can locate them on our webpage. You can contact us at the OVC PMT Helpdesk with any questions that you have. We are always here to support you and assist you. We can schedule different technical assistance sessions or coaching sessions to any new staff members, or new grantees that are completing reporting for the first time, or anybody that really needs a refresher session of any sort. 

Our sessions usually take about 30 minutes, but we can certainly provide additional support as needed, whether it's longer than 30 minutes, or less than 30 minutes, depending on what our grantee's needs are. You can also send us any questions or comments or suggestions through our PMT Helpdesk, and we'll be more than happy to respond. And you can visit our webpage for all of our recorded resources, terminology and dictionary resource, and any other guides on how to use the PMT, and how to complete reporting, and how to better understand the performance measures themselves. 

The JustGrants team also has a lot of resources available to our grantees that they should utilize when they're completing the semi-annual portion of reporting. They have, we've linked these all for you, here, and you will be receiving a copy of this presentation. They have their own training website that you can go to, but there's also different reporting guides, how to complete question sets, how to troubleshoot any issues you're experiencing with your progress reports, how to upload documents in case the two-step process is not working properly for you, and infographics around how to submit a report from step one all the way through to completion. 

For contact information, there are, again, two different helpdesks. There's the PMT Helpdesk, which is the team that presented to you, here, today. We are responsible for the performance measures. for performance reporting and performance management of your OVC awards, and all things related to the PMT system. There's also the second helpdesk, and that is the JustGrants Helpdesk. They are responsible for the functionality of the JustGrants system, and any errors or issues that you're experiencing with JustGrants with the platform itself. If you reach out to us, and you need to be connected with them, we're more than happy to do so, and if you reach out to them, and it's a question that we should be answering, they will direct you to us as well. 

With that, I want to thank you for joining us today, and let you know that if you have any additional questions that were not answered during this session, we are more than happy to schedule time to connect with you. So, please feel free to reach out to us.