RFA # A-296, RFA Title: North Carolina Rape Prevention and Education Program Primary Prevention Addendum Number:

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1 North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health Section/Branch: Chronic Disease and Injury Section/Injury and Violence Prevention RFA Questions and Answers RFA # A-296, RFA Title: North Carolina Rape Prevention and Education Program Primary Prevention Addendum Number: If applicable, Bidder s Conference(s) Date(s): September 30, 2014 Questions Received Until (date): October 14, 2014 Summary of Questions and Answers Release Date: October 21, 2014 Questions and Answers (list all questions and answers in numerical order) 1. Question: I am going to be writing our letter of intent and I wanted to know if you had a sample letter or a template you could send me to help with the structure? Answer: There is no formal format, except it would need to be on letterhead from your organization stating that the above stated agency intends to apply for RPE funds. 2. Question: Page 42 says we should have Letters of Commitment from agencies that will provide access to members. For us, these would be collaborators from whom we would draw our program participants. Page 9 says that part of the six month planning process for previously unfunded grantees will include identifying the populations we intend to reach and necessary partners. Can you give some clarification on how we will have Letters of Commitment from partnering organizations in the application if they are to be identified during the initial six month planning period? Answer: Page 9 refers to the Task Force development during those initial 6 months. Those are the partners of which it speaks. You should have some idea of the partnering agencies needed for just your basic prevention strategy. For example: if your strategy involves primary prevention work in the middle schools, then definitely include them as a partner because they would be essential for the work you will be providing. 3. Question: Page 42 says a Letter of Support is encouraged from the local Health Department to facilitate service provision. Are there specific areas of service it would be good to have this letter address, or is support for collaboration on the RPE project sufficient?

2 Answer: A letter of Support for the RPE project is required from the local health department, if you plan to partner with them. The specifics would be relevant to the project and service you will be providing, as well as the collaborative effort. 4. Question: Are the Application Checklist and Cover Letter instructions on pages 34 and 35 the same for previously funded and previously unfunded applicants? Answer: Yes, they are the same. 5. Question: The 18 hours of professional development activities that are required in the grant, will those be provided at no charge by NC CASA? Answer: While NCCASA offers statewide trainings throughout the year, they often are at a nominal fee for non-nccasa members and free to members (in most instances). The RPE Prevention Coordinator will also have the opportunity to receive 6 of those professional development hours at the mandatory statewide Annual RPE Leadership meeting. 6. Question: Who makes the determination about the 10% indirect cost? Answer: The 10% indirect cost limit is set by the Division of Public Health. In a memo dated November 30, 2007, Deputy Director Dennis E. Harrington declared that the Division will reimburse up to 10% indirect costs for those contractors that have an approved indirect cost rate letter. The actual indirect cost % will be set by the indirect cost rate letter, but cannot exceed 10%. 7. Question: Since the salary is "set" as director can 10% be applied toward a graduate assistant to help with creating and conducting the community assessment? Answer: The salary line items can only be utilized to cover up to 10% of the RPE Prevention Coordinator s salary.

3 8. Question: Can any of the funds be used as additional pay for the person who supervises the funded position? Answer: Yes, it can be used for the supervisor up to 10% of the supervisor s salary. 9. Question: On page 26, Section IV, #s 1 & 2, to be clear, that the three letters, MOU and list are not part of the page limit for this section? Answer: You are correct. They are not part of the page limits. 10. Question: That leads to another question: several sections say '(not including appendices)' after the page limit. Are the relevant appendices to be included at the end of each section, or at the conclusion of the entire narrative? And is there a list of what should be included in the appendices? I don't see anything about them on the application checklist on page 34. Answer: Not including appendices, means any required attachments, MOUs, organization charts, etc. required for that section. Each section will give directions if additional attachments are required. 11. Question: A sample job description is included, but it does not look like any job descriptions should be part of the application. Is that correct? Answer: That is correct; the sample job description was for the benefit of the applying agency. For those agencies that will be hiring a RPE Prevention Coordinator for the first time, we thought it would be beneficial for you to have a guide to help you hire the most competent individual. 12. Question: Page 1 and page 18 both say to send applications electronically. Page 9 says electronic applications will not be accepted in lieu of the original and hard copies. Are there to be both an electronic submission and hard copies? If so, what is the address for the hard copies? Answer: Page 1 is correct, applications should be sent electronically. Page 19 is misstated.

4 13. Question: When speaking about letters from colleges, is it a letter of support or a MOU from them? Can you talk about how you will be evaluating the MOU, what do you expect to be included, how much is prevention, response, etc. Answer: A MOU states what both parties are going to do. A letter of support means they know you exist in the community, this is the work historically that you ve done, and that they support your efforts to apply for this work. If you re going to do work with the college campus, we suggest a MOU. A MOU states that there will be an exchange. The other party should be in agreement with the services to be provided by your prevention coordinator and in exchange, their participation/support should be outlined. We are looking to make sure that each party is clear on what s going to be happening, especially as it relates to prevention. The services you plan to provide should be clearly outlined in the MOU and how you plan on working together. There is no cookie-cutter MOU, but it needs to be more than just a letter of support saying the other party is aware that you are in the community. Follow-up: But, our primary strategy is not going to be on the campus. If not, then a letter of support will be sufficient. Follow-up: We get our volunteer pool from the university, so we expect to get a MOU to address the issue of the volunteer pool, but do we also need a letter of support? The college students actually go into our elementary school and actually present our program? If you have that spelled out in the MOU an additional letter of support will not be necessary. 14. Question: Would we need an MOU with the elementary school and one with the university, if we do programming with the elementary schools? Answer: You will not need one with the university if you re not doing prevention work with them. Follow-up: But we in that case, may we turn in a MOU with the elementary school? Yes. Remember you will be going into a school providing a service. It s a good opportunity for them to say what they are giving you in return. It won t just be an opportunity for a teacher to have free time. As well, the prevention coordinator needs to be supported and not considered to be additional staff. It is vital to get a MOU with any school in which your agency will be providing prevention programming.

5 The school system may have very specific rules that you will need to adhere to that may be different than your agency s guidelines. 15. Question: If your agency provides prevention and intervention, do we need two different MOUs? Answer: You will only need a recent (3-6 months old) MOU as it relates to primary prevention for this RFA. 16. Question: Clarification on the 3-6 months timeline for the MOU 3-6 months from the start of the grant or from the day we turn it in? Answer: From the day you submit it with your proposal. 17. Question: If understood correctly, we would submit a separate MOU for anyone that we are doing work directly with and a LOS would be for any of the community partners with whom we will collaborate? Answer: Yes 18. Question: The community assessment section says if we haven t done one in the last three years we must do a new one. Current RPE grantees conducted a school climate survey. Is the expectation for a new community assessment to be done? Answer: No, the school climate survey will suffice. 19. Question: Are the needs assessment process and logic model comparable to what has been done in the past, if you are a current RPE grantee? Answer: Yes

6 20. Question: The proposal is submitted by so do you want a scanned cover letter? Answer: Yes, it needs to be scanned and signed. 21. Question: What does the community assessment process look like for new funded agencies? Answer: It was covered in the slide show and included models earlier in the PowerPoint presentation at the Bidder s Conference. You may reference page 12 of the RFA and follow the link for additional guidance. In addition, NCCASA, the technical assistance and training provider, will be available to provide guidance during the process, should your agency be selected. 22. Question: We are required to do the community assessment which takes months and that will help grantees identify who our target population would be and guides our strategies, then we are required to hire someone who can deliver the culturally appropriate prevention programming, so who is doing the community assessment? I thought we are hiring the person to do that? Answer: You are responsible, as the funded agency, to conduct the community assessment. The Prevention Coordinator will be responsible for leading and facilitating the prevention programming in the community. Follow-up: How do we know who to hire? We don t know who to hire to do the programming until we hire someone to do the assessment. But we don t have funds for two people? Correct. The funding is for prevention coordinators and can only cover up to 10% of their supervisor s salary. A sample RPE prevention coordinator s position is attached in the RFA. Remember to think about your community and its needs when you are hiring for this position. 23. Question: When collecting evidence what s the level of evidence we should look for? Answer: It s been evaluated using pre- and post-test models with multiple follow up evaluations. Maybe a pretest at baseline and then the intervention happens, then a post-test immediately afterwards. And then maybe a 3, 6, and 9 month evaluation.

7 24. Question: Do you see a lot of the current people receiving RPE funding using their SART team and maybe forming a subcommittee as a task force or are they forming completely different task forces? Answer: Most of them are completely different and is comprised of different individuals in the community. Follow-up: Would there be a reason not to take your SART team and form a subcommittee from them? No, but make sure that they are clear of the difference between prevention and intervention, as well as the focus of primary prevention. We encourage keeping them separate to ensure the primary prevention focus. 25. Question: Will the grantees have meetings that they have to attend? Answer: The only mandated meeting will be the annual RPE leadership meeting. Attendance is mandatory for the Prevention Coordinator and their supervisor. There may be times throughout the year that other trainings will be offered or trainings that we strongly encourage you to attend, but they are not required. 26. Question: Can the letter of intent be scanned and ed or does it have to be a hard copy? Answer: It can be scanned and ed. It must be on letterhead and signed. 27. Question: Will the evidence-based strategies have to be one of the programs that were listed on that slide? Answer: No. They don t have to be one of those programs but if it is a program that we have questions about we probably need to talk about that so that your agency can justify why you re choosing that program. 28. Question: On page 34 of the RFA, it says indirect costs cannot exceed 10%, but on page 29 it says indirect costs cannot exceed 5%. Can you please clarify the limit for indirect costs?

8 Answer: It is 10%. 29. Question: What is the level of evidence used for evidence informed programs? Answer: This slide is not RFA related. It will help when funded if you re Tier Question: Is there a certain number of people that should be on the local task force? Answer: Not too big or not too small. Initially, we would recommend inviting people. The average number of those who consistently attend local RPE task force meetings is 5-6 monthly. 31. Question: Section VI of the narrative, question 2 (Provide a plan for continuing and enhancing process and outcome evaluation of your primary prevention programming, as well as process evaluation of your Sexual Violence Prevention Task Force.) Is this referring to the quarterly reports we submitted to RPE, where we list our planned vs. actual accomplishments and identify successes and challenges in order to guide future planning and stay on top of our goals? Or does this refer to something else like analyzing data or developing strategic action plans? Answer: This does pertain to your quarterly reports that will be submitted to the RPE program. You will have to give updates as it relates to your evaluation processes. You will need to speak to your plan for evaluating the prevention strategies you choose to use. 32. Question: Section V of the narrative, question 3 (Provide a statement of commitment to participating in the cross-site evaluation with the Injury and Violence Prevention Branch). Would you like a letter of commitment from us in the attachment section? Or just a statement in the narrative under that section about how we are committed to and willing to participate in cross-site evaluation? Answer: There is no formal letter of commitment required. This is part of the contractual agreement between the division of Public Health and the RPE grantee. A

9 statement in the narrative stating that the funded agency is willing to participate in cross-site evaluation will suffice.