It's Time to Survey Your Former Trainees!

February 12, 2013

This is a friendly reminder that it is good to begin surveying your former trainees, if you have not done so already. Below are some important details and guidelines to help you with this process.

Important Timeline

FY 2013 will end on June 30, 2013, so all surveys must be received/entered in NIRS by June 30, 2013. Even though NIRS will still be open for cleaning of FY 2013 data until the end of July, any surveys received/entered after June 30, 2013 WILL NOT be included in the reporting for FY 2013. Trainee surveys are reported on as follows:

• UCEDDs: Surveys received/entered in NIRS by June 30, 2013 will be included in the FY 2013 UCEDD Annual Reports to AIDD, which are due July 30^th and are submitted through NIRS. Any surveys received/entered after June 30, 2013 WILL NOT appear in the FY 2013 Annual Reports. Also, please make sure to keep track of how many surveys you send out (regardless of how many surveys are actually completed) because you will need to enter this figure directly in the Annual Report, and this is something that NIRS does not keep track of.

• MCH Programs (LENDs/LEAHs/PPCs/DBPs): Survey responses received/entered in NIRS by June 30, 2013 will be included in the FY 2013 data export from NIRS to the DGIS/EHB, which will take place in the fall. Survey data will populate the Former Trainee Information form in the EHB. Surveys completed after June 30, 2013 WILL NOT be included in the data export for FY 2013.

Who to Survey - The trainees that you will be surveying this year for ADD/MCH reporting are those who COMPLETED your program in FY 2012, 2008, and/or 2003. As you know, we are in FY2013, so your "1 year" former trainees are those who completed your program in FY2012, even if that was only little more than 6 months ago. Only these surveys count in reporting to AIDD/MCHB this year. Surveys of other former trainees, while useful to you, are NOT reported to AIDD/MCHB.

Resources

• Standard Report: A standard report in the Trainee dataset called "Long Term Survey Info" will be very useful; an Admin level of access is required to view this report. Upon selecting the fiscal year (2013), the report will generate a table of trainees to be surveyed in the selected fiscal year (i.e., 1, 5, and 10 years post-training: 2012, 2008, 2003) with any contact information in NIRS and the unique login for each trainee.  The report is organized by "terminal year"  (i.e., the last fiscal year for which a trainee year record exists).  An "X" will display in the appropriate year column to indicate the survey(s) completed by the trainee.  

• Note: When running the report, remember that the check boxes are filters (i.e., if you check both LEND and UCEDD, your search will return only those trainees whose records are marked as both UCEDD and LEND, not either UCEDD or LEND.).

• Note for PPC Programs: A separate report is available created to help you track the completion of Medium Term Trainee Surveys. The report is called "PPC Medium Term Trainee Survey Info" and it can be found under Trainees à Reports, in the "LEND, LEAH, PPC, DBP" column. This new report works just like the Long Term Survey Info report, but it provides information for the Medium Term Trainee surveys.

• Completing the surveys online: You need to provide your former trainees with the following information:

1. The survey link - below are the survey links, which can also be found in NIRS under Trainees à Survey Instructions, as well as in the User's Guide.
   
   • LEND only & LEND/UCEDD: https://www.aucd.org/nirs/db/survey/lend.cfm
   • UCEDD only: http://www.aucd.org/nirs/db/survey/ucedd.cfm
   • LEAH:https://www.aucd.org/nirs/db/survey/leah.cfm
   • PPC Long Term Trainee survey: https://www.aucd.org/nirs/db/survey/ppc_long.cfm
   • PPC Medium Term Trainee Survey: http://www.aucd.org/nirs/db/survey/ppc_med.cfm
   • DBP: https://www.aucd.org/nirs/db/survey/dbp.cfm
2. Mention how you Center is listed in the Center Name drop-down menu on the survey page. Some former trainees may not remember this, so it is a helpful reminder.
3. Provide them with their unique survey login from the Long Term Survey Info report or from the PPC Medium Term Trainee Survey Info report. The latter report is only for the PPC Medium Term Trainee survey.
4. To be sure your former trainees will complete the full survey, please advise them to answer "Yes" to the question "Have you completed ... training program?" (replace dots with appropriate Program type: UCEDD, UCEDD/LEND, LEAH, DBP or PPC). If they answer "No" to this question, then they will submit a blank survey, with no responses, but only the demographic portion completed.

• Instructions and Paper Forms - Below are resources available on the NIRS Paper Forms page on our website:

LEND/UCEDD Survey Instructions 2013 FY2013 LEND/UCEDD Follow Up Survey FY2013 UCEDD-only Follow Up Survey Note: There is no LEND-only survey; LEND-only Centers are to use the LEND/UCEDD survey above.	LEAH Survey Instructions 2013 FY2013 LEAH Follow Up Survey
PPC Survey Instructions 2013 FY2013 PPC Medium Term Trainee Evaluation FY2013 PPC Long Term Trainee Survey	DBP Survey Instructions 2013 FY2013 DBP Follow Up Survey

If you use paper forms, when you receive a paper survey completed, you will have to enter it in NIRS just as if you were the trainee. For this, you can follow the instructions listed above for completing the surveys online.

• Increasing Trainee Survey Responses: Best Practice Methods for Obtaining High Response Rates from Trainees - This report was developed by AUCD to assist Centers in increasing their response rates. The guidelines in this report are based on interviews with directors and former trainees from several Programs that have consistently obtained the highest response rates in surveying their former trainees.

For any questions, please contact Corina Miclea Rotsko ([email protected] or 301-588-8252, x221).