Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN) New Performance Measures Training

Gabriela Castellanos: Okay, hello, everyone. Welcome to the PSN training, otherwise known as the project safe Neighborhoods new performance measurements training. My name is Gabriella Atgasterianos and I am the TTA specialist on the BJA planning Performance and impact team. Thank you for joining us today. We're gonna get right into it starting with our agenda.

We will start with an overview of the performance management at BJA. We will then go over data reporting requirements. We will go over the exact changes to the PSN questionnaire. We will recommend best practices when reporting. Then we will provide some helpful resources, and that will be it. Yeah, here are the presenters, like I said, my name is Gabriella Gastianos. I also have my colleagues, Angela Bouchy, and Janine Baulia. With that being said, let's get into performance management at BJA with Angela. Go ahead.

Angela Balchi: Thank you. So performance management at BJA is the process of programs and grantees regularly collecting data on their grant activities. Performance measures are a tool to help determine whether activities are implemented as intended and achieving their desired goals and objectives. Performance measures also help to capture outputs and outcomes over time, which enables pre and post comparisons to assess change. Performance measures and the resulting data helps support analysis to identify data trends patterns, and insights that can inform program decisions and improvements as well as demonstrate the success of BJA grant activities and compliance to regulations. You can find additional information and other resources on the OJP performance measurement and progress reporting information portal linked at the bottom of the slide. The BJA performance website is also listed.

So why does BJA use performance measures? There are several uses of performance measures for BJA grant programs. 1st is to understand how funds are being distributed. BJA and OJP are regularly tracking progress towards overall goals and develop various. These Reports through annual key performance indicators with performance measures. We also track grant activity and progress towards program goals. This enables us to respond to external requests and data calls such as congressional inquiries, media requests, and freedom of information requests.

I, it also helps us to identify needs for specific training and technical assistance or revisions to program design or implementation. And lastly, BJA is, required to collect performance measures in compliance with several legislative acts such as the government performance and results Modernization Act of 2010, the digital accountability and Transparency Act of 2014 and the grant reporting efficiency and agreements Transparency Act of 2019.

Next slide. There are also several benefits that performance measures have for your organization and your program. By systematically monitoring performance measures and tracking your own data, you can help identify what is working well and what might need to change. This helps you to make data driven decisions and manage and improve your grant program. Additionally, the data that you provide allows us to provide targeted training and technical assistance resources for the grantees that need it most. Performance measurement data can also be used as evidence that you are achieving and meeting your goals. This can help you plan for program sustainability and health help you to advocate for additional resources for your program.

Now we're gonna get into specifically discussing data reporting requirements. We're gonna discuss the where, when, and what of reporting requirements. We'll get into each of these in the upcoming slides. So 1st, where do I report data? BJA has two online tools to facilitate performance measurement reporting, the performance measurement tool or PMT and just grants. PSN program grantees will continue to report in the PMT quarterly and then upload your reports to just grants semi annually. PSN has revised performance measures beginning this year. The revised PSN measures will automatically appear for your January 2025 reporting period.

We have PMT and just grants resources on this slide. If you have specific questions related to the PSN performance measures or other reporting requirements, please reach out to the PMT help desk. If you have just grants system related questions, please contact the just grants support team. We'll provide the contact information again at the end of this presentation.

Where and when do I report data? This table shows a reporting schedule for PMT reporting requirements and, by reporting period. Reporting periods with a 30 January and 30 July deadline require narrative questions and an upload to just grants. The only time these requirements go outside of those states is if you are completing the, for if you are filling out the last report for your award. This requires performance measures, narrative questions, closeout questions, and an upload to just grants. So for this month of January 2025, you will respond to performance measures for the reporting period of 1 October 2024 to 31 December 2024. You will also respond to narrative questions answering those based on the last six months of data. Then for the January 2025 reporting period, you will need to upload two pdfs to just grants in order to fulfill your reporting requirements. One for the July to December July to September 2024 reporting period and one for the October to December 2024 reporting period. This is only for the January submission to fulfill, based on the change of the performance measures. Moving forward, you will only need to upload one PDF report to just grants. The revised performance measures for PSN can be found through the link on the screen.

And again in January 2025, all PSN active awards will report using the new performance measures. So we encourage you to become familiar with these measures before reporting. Additionally, you can use this PDF version as a guide to track relevant data at a time interval that is easiest for you and then when it is time to report, you can add those figures or information into the PMT. So there are three required sources of data that you are required to report that we have already been mentioning, performance measures, and narrative questions.

So 1st, the performance measures begin with general award administration questions, which asks about your grant activity status and how your award is being administered. Performance measures are a series of questions that measure outcomes of grant activities and demonstrate the accomplishment of goals and objectives of BJA programs. Finally, narrative questions are also, are reported semi annually. These questions are related to the grantee's specific goals, objectives, barriers, and successes. We'll now get into the specifics of the performance measure sections. Janine?

Jeannine Bulbulia: Thank you Angie. As mentioned, the PSN performance measures have been revised. Although it's only a few less questions, the updated performance measures are streamlined, more informed with the stakeholders, less burdensome, and collect, to collect and report and beneficial to PSN grantees.

The previous performance measures focused on the strategic plan, data tracking and task force partnerships. The new performance, the new performance measures focus on the award and sub award activities addressing community engagement, prevention and intervention strategies and accountability.

The new PSN performance measures are comprised of eight sections. General award administration, activity funding, project information, planning, award and subward activities, training and technical assistance, program impact, and narrative questions.

The PMT system itself has not changed. You will log in the same way you have logged in previously. If you have technical issues logging into the PMT, please reach out to the help desk. Once you're in your PSN Federal award, grantees and subrecipients will be able to see the section tabbed at the top of the page.

In the grant activity section, grantees will need to select how their PSN award is administered. The system will determine which sections you are required to answer based on your response. Please contact the help desk if you are unsure of which option to select. Prime grantees, also known as fiscal agents and sub recipients should respond.

Yes, towards their grant activity during the reporting period, if funds have been drawn down and should continue to answer yes until the close of their award. If you are a prime grantee, and you are not implementing programs or activities select option A, which reads, we are the prime recipient of the award, and all grant funds are sub awarded to subrecipients. If selected, the prime recipient does not expend PSN funds for equipment or supplies or personnel and does not implement any programs, services or activities. Administrative set aside funds are not applicable for reporting. If you are a sub recipient reporting grant activity, you should select option B, which reads we are a sub recipient. Prime grantees who are implementing programs or activities should select option C, which reads We are the fiscal agent and are conducting programmatic activities.

In the activity funding section grants he's and subrecipients should select all activity categories in their PSN award and sub awards are funding. The activity categories are law enforcement, prosecution, community engagement and outreach, prevention, and or intervention, other than reentry and public awareness I just reentry community supervision, e.g., probation or parole, research and evaluation, intimate partner violence reduction strategies, and public awareness and education. Please ensure, please ensure you select all activity categories your PSN award is funding in the project information section grantees and sub recipients will need to select their district's PSN TTA support region and their PSN district. The available TTA support regions are northeast, southeast, south central, Mountain Plains, Mid Atlantic, Midwest and a Pacific. The PMT will have a list of PSN districts available on a dropdown list for grantees and subrecipients. In the planning section, grantees will need to select activities that were in progress or completed during the reporting period.

Grantees will also need to describe the status of the award and sub award activities. Describe one activity per entry. Add additional entries and report up to ten activities. The award and sub award activity section begins with open ended questions followed by three subsections. Fiscal agents that are not implementing programs or activities do not complete this section. Please ensure your responses are comprehensive and concise. Here we have the beginning of the community engagement prevention and intervention section. This section acts grantees and subrecipients if they utilize intervention and intervention strategies or engaged in community activities during the reporting period. The PMT will skip questions that do not apply based on your response.

For the focus and strategic enforcement and accountability section, grantees and sub recipients will have to select all approaches and models their PSN program focused on and whether they conducted program analysis. Program analysis could include a formal outcome evaluation, regular and ongoing monitoring of program activities and outputs surveys of pro and surveys of program participants or community members. For the technical and training assistance section, this section of this purpose is to measure training availability on PSN initiatives. This section also focuses on the frequency and quality of TPA provided by BJA funded for providers.

Grantees and sub recipients will be able to report the number of personnel trained on methods used for the PSN initiative, the number of TTA requested and the quality of the TTA interactions during the reporting period. Close out questions will be required when all grant activities are complete and the grant is ending. These questions will only appear when grants he select yes to the 1st question in the performance measures, which asks, is this the last reporting period for which the award will have data to report?

Lastly, the performance measures end with narrative questions. The narrative questions at the end of the performance measures are also new, so please review them within the PDF when completing your performance measures. As Angie mentioned earlier during the month of January 2025, you will respond to performance measures for the period of 1 October 24 through 31 December 2024. You will also respond to narrative questions answered based on the last six months of data. The narrative section is where grantees can highlight their accomplishments and discuss their challenges. We do want to make sure that you're answering the narrative questions correctly.

When responding to your narrative questions, grantees should include a description of their program goals when responding to accomplishments and challenges question. We have provided an example on this slide. For the 1st narrative question, which reads what were your accomplishments include any progress made towards achieving your grant funded program goals during the reporting period? The grantee's response states their program's goal followed by the accomplishment of their particular goal. For the 2nd narrative question which reads, what challenges did you encounter, if any, within the reporting period that prevented you from reaching your goals or milestones? Grantees should restate their goal and then state their challenge. If grantees have more than one goal, each goal should be listed with the corresponding accomplishment and challenge. Please feel free to number the goals and their corresponding accomplishments and challenges.

As we come close to the end of this presentation, we would like to share some tips to improve data quality that your program can do from the very beginning. 1st, let's talk about why it's important for data to be accurate. Grantee Grantee data is used in a number of ways for critical BJA and congressional functions, including legislatively mandated reporting, informing and justifying federal budgets for future funding, responding to questions from legislators and other policy makers, publicly reported statistics, testifying before Congress, identifying promising practices in the field, and responsible use of federal funds.

You're the best person to identify if something is incorrect in the reporting. It is recommended that a designated staff person can coordinate all performance measured data collection and entry to ensure consistency. If this is the 1st time you will report data for your organization, make sure you are familiar with the data you will need to collect and report.

Do this by reviewing the PDF version of the questionnaire. Ensure a backup person is aware of the data collection and reporting process so they can fill in if the designated staff person is unavailable or leave their leaves their role. Review the performance measure questionnaire at the start of the grant to build effective data collection systems and processes.

Do not duplicate reported activities or outcomes across reporting periods or award, if your project is funded by multiple awards. Review and verify data for accuracy with sub recipients before submission. Enter 9999 if data is unavailable and provide explanations and plans for addressing unavailable data. Be mindful of the validation alerts built into the PMT questionnaire and verification outreach by the PMT help desks. I will now turn turn the presentation over to Gabriella for helpful resource.

Gabriela Castellanos: Thanks Janine. It is important to know which help desk to contact so that your issue or question can be resolved quickly. You can contact the PMT help desk if you have questions on the following. Questions on performance measures, if you'd like to schedule a TTA session for staff on data collection, PMT reporting or understanding performance measures, PMT questions and account creations, unlocking previously submitted reports or creating semi annual PMT reports. You can contact the just grants help desk with the following. Account creation and just grants, navigating just grants to find progress reports, unlocking accounts or help with passwords, roles and permissions such as grant award administrator or entity administrator, error messages or uploading and attaching documents. On this slide, there are a few websites that are worth bookmarking so that you can go back and reference them. Specifically, I want to highlight the BJA performance measures webpage that has a lot of resources to help you report as well as your performance measures. There are also various training videos on the BJ A youtube channel that maybe useful as well.

Lastly, stay connected. You can find us on Facebook, X, youtube, and subscribe to our newsletters using the QR code right there. You can also find more resources via the BJA website listed on the screen. Please stay connected and we hope that you enjoyed this training. Thank you.