High levels of divorce, cohabitation, and fragile unions, especially among the less educated in the United States, mean that unprecedented numbers of children are growing up in families without two parents in a healthy, stable relationship. This family instability poses increased risks to children’s well-being and healthy development. This report by Alan J. Hawkins, […]
The Supporting Healthy Marriage project, being led by MDRC, is an impact and implementation evaluation of healthy marriage education and related services for lower-income married couples with children provided by eight programs across the country. The major study questions include: (1) What are the experiences, issues and challenges in designing, implementing and operating healthy marriage […]
The Exploratory Study of Decision Making in Low-Income Couples (CDM) was designed to gather information that may ultimately help shape content, service delivery, and outcome measurement in programs serving economically disadvantaged families, particularly parents eligible for public assistance and social services. The study uses survey data, direct observation of couple interaction, and physiological measurement to […]
The Strengthening Families with Children Born Out-of-Wedlock project was jointly funded by ACF’s Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation and Office of Child Support Enforcement. Researchers conducting this study utilized research, information obtained from field observations, and expert consultation to develop a conceptual framework for the design and evaluation of interventions to improve the quality […]
The Supporting Healthy Marriage in Step-Families project: (1) summarized and synthesized the existing literature concerning the characteristics of stepfamilies, (2) catalogued and documented existing marriage support and education programs focused on step/blended families, and (3) developed a conceptual framework to help guide future programmatic and research agendas aimed at stabilizing and supporting step-families, with a […]
The Building Strong Families (BSF) evaluation assessed the impacts of eight programs offering a similar model of healthy marriage and relationship skills and support services to interested low-income unmarried parents around the time of the birth of a child. While many unmarried parents live together when their children are born, their relationships are often tenuous […]
In 2002, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) instituted the Community Healthy Marriage Initiative (CHMI) evaluation to document operational lessons and assess the effectiveness of community-based approaches to support healthy relationships, marriages, and child well-being. The evaluation is being conducted by RTI International and The Urban Institute. A component of the CHMI study involved […]
In 2002, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) instituted the Community Healthy Marriage Initiative (CHMI) evaluation to document operational lessons and assess the effectiveness of community-based approaches to support healthy relationships and marriages and child well-being. A component of the CHMI study involves implementation research on demonstrations approved by the Office of Child Support […]
The Parents and Children Together (PACT) contract, awarded to Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., is a formative evaluation project which aims to document and provide initial assessment of selected Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Marriage grant programs. The project employs multiple evaluation strategies – including impact, implementation, and qualitative approaches – to describe and evaluate the grant […]