ORR Proposes Extensive Revisions to Unaccompanied Alien Children Care Facility Monitoring to Enhance Oversight and Streamline Compliance

The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), a division of the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), has announced comprehensive revisions to its information collection activities concerning the monitoring and compliance of care provider facilities for unaccompanied alien children (UACs). This development, published in the Federal Register on August 5, 2026, initiates a public comment period ending October 5, 2026, inviting stakeholders to weigh in on changes designed to enhance oversight, clarify reporting, and modernize data collection processes for these critical facilities.

The Mandate for Oversight

ORR's mission includes the care and placement of UACs who arrive in the United States without a parent or legal guardian. A cornerstone of this responsibility is ensuring the safety and well-being of these children, which necessitates rigorous monitoring of the care provider facilities that house them. These facilities are expected to adhere to a complex web of federal and state laws, licensing and accreditation standards, ORR policies, and child welfare best practices. The proposed revisions reflect ORR's continuous effort to refine its monitoring apparatus, specifically through the work of its Monitoring and Compliance Bureau (MCB) and Unaccompanied Alien Children Bureau (UACB).

Key Revisions to Existing Instruments

The notice outlines several significant adjustments to currently approved information collection forms. A global revision involves standardizing terminology, changing "unaccompanied child (UC)" to "unaccompanied alien child (UAC)" and limiting the "Gender" field to "Sex" with options for Male or Female. This update ensures consistency across all documentation.

Individual forms also received targeted enhancements:

• Incident Review Forms (M-5A to M-5B): Instructions have been clarified, and questions reworded. New questions are added to ensure ORR receives a complete and clear picture of reported incidents, aiming for more thorough incident analysis.
• Home Study and Post-Release Services Site Visit Guide (M-7E): This guide has been extensively revised to align with current ORR monitoring expectations. Key sections are reorganized and expanded to gather more specific information. New content areas include program capacity, personnel onboarding and training, finance, language access, notifications of concern, sponsor/address flagging, subrecipient oversight, and background check compliance. The pre-site visit materials request is also updated to demand more detailed documentation.
• Interview Tools (M-13A and M-13B): Titles are updated, and more structured fields for program, monitoring visit, interview, interpreter, and timing information are added. Standardized guidance for interviewers now covers preparation, virtual interviews, interpreter use, trauma-informed practices, mandated reporting, confidentiality, and close-out. Crucially, child safety and incident-response questions are expanded to cover abuse, maltreatment, sexual abuse/harassment, runaway incidents, trafficking, exploitation, and unsafe environments. Service delivery, documentation, and role-specific questions are also revised for better assessment of program oversight and quality.

Introduction of New Monitoring Tools

To fill existing gaps and address evolving monitoring needs, ORR is introducing nine new instruments:

• Prevention of Sexual Abuse (PSA) Quarterly Report (M-18): This new form is critical for care providers to report quarterly PSA data on incidents and allegations of sexual abuse and harassment, as mandated by federal regulation 45 CFR 411.102(c).
• Business Owner Site Visit Report (M-19): Contract business owners will use this instrument to conduct and document quarterly site visits for contract-funded care facilities, including observations and child interview responses.
• Home Study and Post-Release Services (HSPRS) Interview Tools (M-13F, M-13G, M-13H, M-13I): A suite of four new tools tailored for monitoring HSPRS providers, including supervisory caseworkers, discharged children and sponsors, quality assurance staff, and subrecipient staff.

A significant modernization effort is ORR's plan to migrate all forms into a single web-based application, the "Monitoring & Compliance App." This transition involves developing new web-based tools:

• Monitoring File Checklists (M-20): This web-based tool consolidates multiple Word and Excel checklists into one instrument. It includes sub-tools for Child File, Staff File, and Foster Parent File Checklists, used by federal and contractor monitors during visits.
• Monitoring Interviews (M-21): This comprehensive web-based tool consolidates previous questionnaires for various interviews. It includes sub-tools for Child Interview, Staff Interview (covering roles like case manager, clinician, educator), Foster Parent Interview, and Stakeholder Interview (for case coordinators, child advocates, legal service providers, and state licensing representatives).
• Monitoring Site Assessment (M-22): This web-based tool standardizes the documentation of onsite observations, including facility walk-throughs, ensuring compliance with ORR's newly developed monitoring measures.

Discontinuation of Obsolete Forms

ORR is discontinuing 33 forms, a move that aims to eliminate redundancy and remove instruments that are no longer relevant or used. This includes:

• Out-of-Network Site Visit Report (M-3B): This form was developed for an unimplemented system and was never used.
• Remote Site Visit Guides (M-7B, M-7D): These versions were created specifically for remote monitoring during the COVID-19 pandemic and are no longer necessary.
• Numerous Foster Care Program Checklists and Questionnaires: Many specific foster care monitoring tools are being retired, as their functions will be absorbed and streamlined by the new web-based Monitoring File Checklists (M-20) and Monitoring Interviews (M-21).
• Extensive Unlicensed Facility Tools: A large number of specialized monitoring tools for unlicensed or delicensed facilities are being discontinued. Going forward, monitors will utilize the standard (Word, Excel, and web-based) versions of their tools to monitor these facilities, standardizing the process across all types of care providers.

Impact on Burden and Frequency of Oversight

The proposed revisions are projected to result in a substantial 49.80 percent decrease in the overall annual burden compared to the currently approved information collection. This reduction is attributed to a decrease in the number of care provider facilities, a four-hour reduction in the time to complete site assessments, and the removal or consolidation of many forms. While the total burden decreases, there are notable shifts in monitoring frequency:

• Comprehensive site visits to licensed care providers will increase from biennially to annually.
• Comprehensive and follow-up site visits to delicensed care providers will change from biennially with quarterly follow-ups to annually with a six-month follow-up visit.
• New additional quarterly site visits will be introduced for care provider facilities funded under a contract.

These adjustments indicate a targeted strategy to maintain robust oversight where it is deemed most critical, while simultaneously leveraging technological improvements and streamlining processes to reduce unnecessary administrative burdens.

Moving Forward

The revisions represent a significant modernization effort by ORR to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of its monitoring program for UAC care provider facilities. The shift towards web-based tools and the consolidation of numerous forms into more comprehensive, standardized instruments are expected to improve data quality, consistency, and the overall ability to ensure compliance with child welfare standards. The public comment period provides an important opportunity for affected parties and the public to provide feedback on these proposed changes, shaping the final implementation of ORR's critical oversight functions.