Family Team Conferencing and other similar family conference models involve family and community members in decision making and case planning to provide safety to children and other family members in child maltreatment cases. Since roughly half of all families experiencing child maltreatment also experience domestic violence, a large percentage of families who are possible candidates […]

Findings from social science research and marriage education are cited in this report to examine the government’s role in supporting healthy marriages for the benefit of children. The analysis considers reasons for public policies that address marriage issues and the elements of effective marriage policy. Studies have indicated that law and public policies about marriage […]

Developed by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), this technical assistance module explains how to form coalitions to support Community Healthy Marriage Initiatives (CHMI) designed to strengthen marriages and improve child well-being. The CHMI conceptual model involves combining the efforts of public and private social service agencies to inform couples and parents about resources […]

This report outlines President Bush’s Healthy Marriage Initiative. The proposed program would seek to increase healthy marriage by providing individuals and couples with: information on the value of marriage in the lives of men, women, and children; marriage-skills education that will enable couples to reduce conflict and increase the happiness and longevity of their relationship; […]

Children are increasingly born into cohabitating parent families, and past research based on children born 10 to 20 years ago suggests that children born to cohabitating parents experience greater family instability than children born to married parents. This study adds to the literature by analyzing three waves of the Fragile Families Study to examine family […]

Policymakers and researchers alike are debating whether marriage might be an antipoverty strategy for families with children. Some believe that if more parents married, there would be a substantial decrease in poverty. Others suggest that increasing the marriage rate among poor and near-poor parents, while not dramatically reducing poverty, would make a significant dent in […]