HHS Secretary Kennedy urged to halt restructuring of ACF research arm

Over 130 organizations and 650 individuals have signed a letter urging the Department of Health and Human Services to halt plans to restructure a research and evaluation office, warning agency leadership that the move could damage the credibility and usability of its findings.

According to the letter, the agency plans to “drastically restructure and effectively dismantle” the Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE), a team that oversees evaluation for “some of the most consequential programs in the federal government,” including Head Start. 

That move “threatens to destroy one of the federal government’s most effective and respected evaluation units,” the coalition said. They’re calling for HHS to pause its plans and engage in conversation with Congress, researchers and other stakeholders before taking any action. 

The correspondence was coordinated by the Data Foundation, a nonpartisan, nonprofit focused on open data policy, and sent to HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday. 

News of a forthcoming restructuring of OPRE was first reported by The Imprint, an independent publication focused on youth and family news, which revealed that the agency announced the decision in an internal memo earlier this month. Details of the restructuring do not appear to have been made public by HHS and come after the agency already carried out large-scale reorganizations and terminations last year.

FedScoop reached out to both HHS’s public affairs office and ACF for comment on the letter via its email forms, and forwarded a request to department spokespeople directly. FedScoop did not receive a response before publication of this story.  

The letter comes as President Donald Trump has launched high-profile attacks against government officials responsible for making independent, evidence-based decisions, such as Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and former Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, whom he ousted. Those actions have sent shockwaves throughout the communities that depend on independent, nonpartisan information. 

Partisan influence is similarly a concern for the coalition. According to the letter, only mandated research is expected to continue and will be required to get a final sign-off from political appointees, “compromising the scientific independence that gives evaluation findings their credibility and utility.”

The letter continued: “This means years of ongoing studies, taxpayer-funded data collection efforts, and research partnerships will likely be abandoned—in many cases just as they were poised to deliver findings.” 

The coalition also raised concerns about congressional intent given that appropriations for fiscal year 2026 “largely supported” the functions of the office. 

Nichole Dunn, vice president of federal policy for Results for America, one of the organizations that signed the letter, told FedScoop that restructuring OPRE is concerning, in part, because the office provides information that helps ensure taxpayer dollars are funding solutions that are effective.

“OPRE is how we know what works for kids and families and many of the important programs we care about,” Dunn said. Results for America is a nonprofit that promotes the use of data and evidence to fuel decisionmaking in state, local and federal governments.

Dunn said that the organization has worked with both ACF and OPRE for years and noted that the children and families agency is among those it’s recognized as a leading example within the federal government of using evidence to make its decisions. The change could also have the effect of causing more waste, she added.

“OPRE’s evaluations tell us which programs deliver and which don’t,” Dunn said. “That’s the kind of accountability that protects taxpayers and the people receiving these services.”

Additionally, Dunn said it’s the coalition’s understanding that the restructuring will likely mean OPRE’s functions get moved within program offices, meaning programs would now be evaluating their own work. Dunn described that structure as “problematic” because evaluation work could be devalued amid internal competition for resources and may introduce bias.

Among the other organizations that signed the letter: The American Statistical Association, National Council on Family Relations, UnidosUS, and multiple state-based groups focused on issues such as child care, child abuse prevention, and access to Head Start programs. Individual signatories include former chief statistician of the U.S. Nancy Potok and former director of the National Center for Health Statistics Charles J. Rothwell. 

The letter followed a previous joint statement from the data organization and Results for America, decrying the department’s decision to reshuffle OPRE earlier this month. In a statement included in the release, Nick Hart, president and CEO of the Data Foundation, highlighted the short period of time in which the coalition was built as a testament to the importance of OPRE’s work.

“In less than 10 days, more than 130 organizations and hundreds of individuals came together to defend one of the federal government’s most important evaluation offices,” Hart said. “The breadth of this coalition — from major research associations to Head Start programs to child welfare advocates — reflects just how widely OPRE’s work touches American communities.”

One former government contractor whose role supported the OPRE, Clare DiSalvo, posted to LinkedIn on Monday that she resigned from her position as a result of actions by the Trump administration that “repeatedly undermined” the scientific work of that office, including the restructuring. 

“This risks undermining the credibility of federally funded research and eroding its power to benefit people’s lives,” DiSalvo said.

Prior to her resignation, she said she spent almost 14 years in roles within or supporting HHS under both Republican and Democratic administrations. DiSalvo declined to comment beyond her post.