Office of Refugee Resettlement Consulting Services

Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Source Selection/Market Research on Consulting Services THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE FOR MARKET RESEARCH ONLY – NO AWARD WILL BE MADE FROM THIS NOTICE 1. INTRODUCTION The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is responsible for the care and placement of unaccompanied children (UC) transferred from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Challenges related to the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic and an unprecedented spike of UC arriving at the United States border in calendar year 2021 caused tremendous strain on ORR’s shelter network. To resolve these challenges and effectively respond to future spikes in referrals, ORR seeks technical assistance from organizations with broad experience in the domestic child welfare and juvenile program arenas. Under this PWS, the Contractor will provide analysis, provide technical assistance, and develop a series of recommendations for ACF/ORR about how best to structure its resources to meet the myriad needs of UC and the ORR program. 2. REQUIREMENT DESCRIPTION The Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is seeking information about the capabilities of vendors to provide administrative support and analysis to ORR to meet its mission and expand and reorient its resources to meet external pressures that impact ORR shelter and service provider capacity. Under this effort, the Contractor will provide ORR with technical assistance and recommendations intended to meet the following performance objectives: Increase capacity of licensed-UC providers. Enhance and support UC case management. Increase capacity and services within ORR’s shelter network (including transitional foster care, small group homes, shelters, and long-term foster care). Rapidly expand bed capacity in licensed ORR shelters without a diminution of services. Improve ORR capacity to timely discharge and transfer UC from placement. Successful contractors must demonstrate capabilities to: Provide technical assistance to ORR in using a variety of funding mechanisms (grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts to achieve ORR capacity objectives (i.e. referral, intake, housing, case management, transportation). Provide technical assistance and strategic planning to ORR on how to manage and expedite licensing of ORR-funded programs. Provide guidance and technical assistance to establish performance metrics for housing, case management, and timely release of UC to include the provision of post release services. Support and advise ORR on strategic communications, engagement with state and local stakeholders, and lessons learned from the domestic child welfare system and reforms. 3. GENERAL INSTRUCTIONS: (a) SUBMISSION: Responses shall be submitted electronically via email to Ron Rheinhardt at [email protected]. Responses shall be received on or before July 22, 2021 at 3:00 PM (EST). (b) QUESTIONS: All questions shall be submitted electronically via email to Ron Rheinhardt at [email protected]. The cut-off date and time for receipt of questions is Monday July 20, 2021 at 12:00pm (EST). Questions received after this date and time may not be answered. 4. SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS: (a) RESPONSE PREPARATION COSTS: The Contracting Officer is the only individual legally authorized to commit the Government to the expenditure of public funds in connection with any procurement. This SS/RFI does not commit the Government to pay any costs for the preparation and submission of a response in response to this SS/RFI notice. (b) GENERAL: All potential sources with the capability to provide the requirements referenced in this SS/RFI are invited to submit, in writing, sufficient information within the format limitation (listed below). This information must demonstrate the responder's ability to fulfill the requirements and be responsive to the technical questions in this SS/RFI, as indicated below. (c) FORMAT: The response shall be clearly indexed and logically assembled. Font size shall be no smaller than 12-point. The response must be submitted as a single application-generated (not scanned) PDF document that is less than or equal to 10MB in size. Capacity Statements shall be no longer than ten (10) pages. (d) CONTENT REQUIREMENTS: All information shall be confined to the appropriate volume. The requirements for each volume are shown below. (e) Volume Information Volume I Cover Page Volume II Capability Information (e.1) VOLUME I – COVER PAGE REQUIREMENTS: The cover page shall include the following information: SS/RFI Title & Number; Company Name; Company Address; Company Point of Contact (Name, Phone Number, email address) Company Data Universal Numbering System (DUNS) Number; Company Business Size; Company Business type (i.e., Large Business, Small Business, Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business, Small Disadvantaged Business, Woman-Owned Small Business, Hub Zone Small Business, etc.). (e.2) VOLUME II – CAPABILITY INFORMATION REQUIREMENTS: Respondents shall provide a general capabilities statement to address the Requirements Description and provide no more than five similar contracts that your company has performed within the last three years that are of comparable size, complexity, and scope to this requirement. Please include the following information at a minimum: Contract Name; Contract Scope; Awarded Price/Cost; Government’s technical representative/Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR) and current e-mail address and telephone (or commercial point of contact equivalent); Describe your self-performed** effort (as either a Prime or Subcontractor). Describe self performed work in terms of dollar value and description; **Self-Performed means work performed by the company themselves, NOT work performed by another company for them for any of the project examples provided. A brief narrative that describes the details of each project and why it is relevant to this requirement, including difficulties and successes. 5. DISCLAIMER: (a) This SS/RFI notice is issued solely for information and planning purposes and does not constitute a solicitation or obligation on the part of the Government. Per FAR 15.201(e), responses to this notice are not considered offers, shall not be used as a proposal, and cannot be accepted by the Government to form a binding contract. Neither unsolicited proposals nor any other kinds of offers will be considered in response to this notice. No evaluation letters and/or results will be issued to the respondents; however, the Government does reserve the right to contact any respondent and/or respondent reference to obtain additional information. At this time no solicitation exists; therefore, please do not request a copy of the solicitation. (b) Any resulting procurement action will be the subject of a separate, future announcement. The information is provided for discussion purposes and any potential strategy for this acquisition may change prior to any solicitation release. The acquisition strategy, evaluation methodology, contract type, and other acquisition decisions are to be determined. (c) Responders are advised that the Government will not pay for any information or administrative costs incurred in response to this SS/RFI. All costs associated with responding to this SS/RFI will be solely at the responding party’s expense. (d) The government intends to issue a no cost contract