The health benefits of marriage have been much commented on and are often misunderstood. The significance of the growing body of evidence establishing the connections is now becoming clearer. A new series of NHMRC publications address these issues in depth and are an invaluable and reliable resource for health researchers, healthcare professionals and health policy […]
A letter and bill recommendations to Senators Wyden and Isakson, from senior health care and family systems professionals (clinicians, researchers and educators) with special interest and expertise in chronic illness. See also this blog post by Matt Martin, PhD., LMFT, Theodora Ooms, MSW and Jana Staton, PhD. : A vehicle to promote couple and family-centered, integrated […]
Also posted on The Collaborative Family Healthcare Association's website. It is seldom that family-centered health care professionals get an opportunity to directly influence national health care policy. Alerted by Theodora Ooms and Jana Staton, several members of CFHA recently saw an opening when Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA) introduced the Better Care, Lower […]
Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) was a yearlong voluntary marriage education program to help strengthen couples' relationships. SHM had small sustained positive effects on marital quality more than a year after the program ended but did not achieve its objectives of leading more couples to stay together or improving children’s well-being. MDRC SHM Overview Link
This paper presents findings from in-depth interviews with 16 couples who participated in the Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) program. Couples reported benefiting from SHM’s focus on communication and conflict management, but financial needs and lack of social supports placed stress on their relationships throughout their tenure in SHM. MDRC Overview Link
The Ex-Prisoner Reentry Strategies Study, being conducted by The Urban Institute, will document the implementation of programs funded under the FY 2011 Community-Centered Responsible Fatherhood Ex-Prisoner Reentry Pilot Project grant announcement, the experiences of staff and participants, and lessons useful to others in the field. The researchers will also develop evaluation design recommendations for comprehensive […]
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 […]
A number of leading marriage and relationship education programs encourage couples to value and to understand the benefits of spending time together, as it is an important condition for a flourishing relationship. There has been some concern that poor couples may have less time and energy for each other than other couples — and less […]
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 […]