Project Management

The agency where you are located will have specific requirements for budgeting and fiscal reporting that, coupled with OSEP requirements, dictate your budget process. For example, the budget year of your agency may differ from the budget year of the grant. Discussing budget requirements and timelines with your finance office should be an early priority. Within your project, the main question to consider is whether your allocations of money match your technical assistance goals and processes. 

Most grant money goes to salaries and therefore staff time. When planning activities, it is helpful to link staff time directly to project goals. For example, if improving early identification and referral by targeting your state’s EDHI system is a goal for your project, figure out how much staff time you can dedicate to that goal. Making explicit links between staff time and goals will lead to the most effective use of your resources. This does not mean you have to track the amount of time staff actually spent on specific activities (unless required by your home agency), but doing this type of planning across your TA work (child-specific TA, systems TA, dissemination, training, etc.) will help you keep track of the amount of time you have committed to specific activities and be realistic about what you can commit to. 

Overview

Your project evaluation plan and activities should provide you with the data you need to:

1. Meet all reporting requirements
2. Support data-based decision-making (e.g., to make internal decisions or to share with your advisory board members so they can provide useful advice)
3. Generate feedback to improve products and services

Your evaluation plan should include:

• A list of data/information you want/need, including Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) measures (see below)
• Who you will collect data from (e.g., parents, service providers, students)
• How you will collect it (e.g., surveys, child find, observation, tracking)
• When you need to collect it (e.g., ongoing, at the time of an event, annually)
• How you will analyze it for reporting and other purposes

A list of project evaluation resources from OSEP can be found on the OSEP Evaluation page.

Reporting Requirements

Performance reporting is chiefly an external requirement. Each report will have different requirements.

OSEP Annual Performance Report (APR)

This will likely be your project’s main reporting requirement. The reporting year typically runs from March 1 to February 28, but may fluctuate from year to year. 

The APR includes both program measures (GPRA) and project measures, which are the measures of your project’s technical assistance outcomes, such as change in knowledge or skill, implementation of best practices, or child change. You will be required to create and report on four performance measures aligned with GPRA and the Common Project Measures.

The four GPRA measures are:

• Quality
• Usefulness
• Relevance
• Timeliness (a measure of the percentage of project milestones met within the reporting period)

There are seven Common Project Measures for state deaf-blind projects that are located in the Basecamp State Deaf-Blind Projects Group.

Your project will have created milestones for your original grant application as well as new ones, annually, that are reported in the APR for the coming year. Milestones refer to one time or periodic events that represent a major accomplishment for the project including completion of an annual or quarterly task that the project wishes to undertake. Examples include:

• The annual child count
• A major conference
• An annual event such as a family weekend or meeting
• Reviews of child count rolls
• Fidelity checks on technical assistance delivery

If you have not spoken to your project officer about your measures, it is worth reviewing them with him or her to make sure you are collecting the data they need. Project officers have specific things they must report within the OSEP systems (e.g., G5) for the grants they manage.

OSEP TA&D PROGRAM EVALUATION OF PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Annually, OSEP conducts reviews of services from a sample of randomly selected state deaf-blind projects. As part of this, selected projects will need to identify OSEP policy references to support their "policy-based" service description guide submissions. OSEP's Policy Guidance web page can help. You can search by keyword (e.g., communication") to find useful OSEP policy letters on your topics.
 
These letters may be cited as policy references, and in addition, will reference the location in legislation (IDEA) or Part C or B IDEA Regulations that may be pertinent to the service you are describing.

Agency Reporting Requirements

In addition to OSEP reports, you may have internal reporting requirements for the agency at which your project is located. For example, all projects housed in UCEDDs (University Centers on Excellence in Developmental Disabilities) have to complete data reporting called NIRS.

Reporting requirements vary from agency to agency, but may include such things as TA and training activities conducted, outputs generated, and the degree to which desired outcomes were achieved.

Regardless of where your project is located you will have to address informed consent issues driven by federal requirements for HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) and FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and how these are interpreted by your home agency and state. In general, requirements for informed consent and release of information are becoming more stringent. Many state deaf-blind projects now have release and consent forms that are signed by families during the project’s intake process. Check with your agency to see if they have a specific required format. Projects housed at universities may be required to submit an application to their Institutional Review Board (IRB). The responsibility for checking to see if an application is required, typically falls on the project. If you are the director of a project housed at a university and your project does not have IRB approval, check with your university’s IRB office. Some universities require IRB approval at the time a grant is submitted and others when it is awarded. 

See Child Count Management page.

The main form of universal TA for deaf-blind projects is dissemination of information about:

• Your project
• Opportunities you offer
• Information on deaf-blindness

Typical goals for universal TA include increasing referral, increasing participation in project activities, and increasing basic knowledge about the needs of individuals who are deaf-blind. Developing a dissemination plan that includes timelines, materials, and dissemination methods can help you approach dissemination in a structured manner that matches the goals you are trying to achieve. It is critical to align this plan with your larger project goals. 

Your grant application included logic models that defined input, outputs, and potential activities. Some projects also develop work plans that outline a higher degree of specificity around activities and timelines. This type of purposeful planning can assist you in conducting and tracking your activities.

• Logic Model Outline (OSEP Funded TA Center)
• Work plan format example

Using advisory boards in ways that add value to your project can be challenging, but when done well can help you manage your project effectively. Advisory boards are useful for needs assessment, strategic planning, reviewing and critiquing project activities, and assisting in establishing collaborative relationships with state agencies. 

The extent to which you document management tasks should be informed by what is required of and useful to you. There is no one recommended way to do this. Here is an example from the Mississippi deaf-blind project of managing by objectives. For each activity, it includes resources and people involved, completed tasks, next steps, and expected outcomes.

While it may seem like an onerous task, developing a clearly defined and well-documented process for child-specific TA:

• Supports the delivery of TA with fidelity (i.e., delivering TA in the way you have defined it overall and within the specific TA relationship you have with a child’s educational team) and increases the likelihood that service providers and families will use the practices you have suggested.
• Makes TA processes, expectations, and requirements clear and transparent for school administrators so they understand the nature of school or agency support necessary for success (clarity for administrators may also ease some of the difficulty that projects frequently face in getting access to schools).
• Eases state deaf-blind project staff transitions and the onboarding of new staff.

See NCDB Support for State Deaf-Blind Projects for more information about child-specific TA and support you can obtain from NCDB in this area.

Projects are expected to address systems TA in their states in an attempt to build the capacity of various systems to serve individuals who are deaf-blind. See NCDB Support for State Deaf-Blind Projects for more information about systems TA and support you can obtain from NCDB.

Grant Year: October 1 to September 30

Child Count: There are various dates to keep track of related to the child count

Performance reporting year: This fluctuates a bit, but is typically March 1 to February 28

Fiscal year: Although the OSEP grant budget year is October 1 to September 30, your agency may have a different fiscal year such as July 1 to June 30