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The Regional Partnership Grant (RPG) program supports partnerships between providers of child welfare services, substance abuse disorder (SUD) treatment, and other social services that enhance the safety and well-being of children who are in, or at risk of, out-of-home placement because of a parent’s or caretaker’s SUD. The Children’s Bureau in the Administration for Children and Families directs the RPG program, which is a key federal program that the United States Congress authorizes to solely and specifically address the needs of families at the intersection of child welfare and substance use.

The Children’s Bureau funded this brief for groups that receive a Regional Partnership Grant (RPG) or other grants and who want to evaluate their programs, especially if they are using comparison group designs. The brief highlights common pitfalls in recruiting and retaining people for programs and evaluations based on the experiences of RPG grantees, and provides tips for enrolling and retaining an adequate program and evaluation sample and successfully collecting data from as many respondents as possible. Tips are based on best practices and the experiences of RPG projects. Although the tips address the context of programs serving populations involved with the child welfare system, the tips can also apply to other program areas.