Intimate partner violence (IPV) is defined as physical violence, sexual violence, stalking, and/or psychological aggression by a current or former intimate partner. IPV is prevalent and has lasting consequences for survivors and their children (CDC, 2017). It is important to understand the services that exist to help prevent IPV and address it effectively when it occurs. IPV services reach a relatively small proportion of men, women, and families affected, and men in particular can be difficult to reach. Federal Responsible Fatherhood (RF) programs have an opportunity to help address IPV…
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Journal Article An examination of the content and processes of evidence-based programs is critical for empirically evaluating theories about how programs work, the “action theory” of the program (West et al. in American Journal of Community Psychology, 21, 571–605, 1993). The New Beginnings Program (NBP; Wolchik et al., 2007), a parenting-after-divorce preventive intervention, theorizes that program-induced improvements in parenting across three domains: positive relationship quality, effective discipline, and protecting children from interparental conflict, will reduce the negative outcomes that are common…
NPEN’s 2015 survey of parenting education nationwide revealed information about work being done in the parenting education arena, including how parents and other caregivers are being reached, how they are engaging with parenting programs, what they are learning and how those programs are promoted and funded. Data was also collected regarding the settings in which parenting educators work, what kind of curricula are being used, what advocacy efforts are being made and which of those efforts have the most success, and what are the greatest obstacles to providing more parenting education. The…
Children who grow up in single-parent families are more likely to be poor, have trouble in school, and become teen parents themselves. Additionally, children who are born to a mother who is a teenager, who hasn't finished high school, and who isn't married are nine times more likely to be poor than a child whose mother is even a few years older, is married and has at least finished high school. Thus, strengthening families through both teen pregnancy prevention (TPP) and marriage and relationship education (MRE) programs is an effort to decrease out-of-wedlock childbearing and increase the…
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Journal Article Jane Waldfogel, Terry-Ann Craigie, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn review recent studies that use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) to examine why children who grow up in single-mother and cohabiting families fare worse than children born into married-couple households. They also present findings from their own new research.Analysts have investigated five key pathways through which family structure might influence child well-being: parental resources, parental mental health, parental relationship quality, parenting quality, and father involvement. It is also important to…
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Journal Article To improve the quality and stability of couple and father-child relationships in fragile families, researchers are beginning to consider how to tailor existing couple-relationship and father-involvement interventions, which are now targeted on married couples, to the specific needs of unwed couples in fragile families. The goal, explain Philip Cowan, Carolyn Pape Cowan, and Virginia Knox, is to provide a more supportive developmental context for mothers, fathers, and, especially, the children in fragile families.The authors present a conceptual model to explain why couple-relationship and…
The Building Strong Families evaluation is a multisite, random-assignment evaluation of a relationship skills education program for unmarried parents. From Mathematica Policy Research, this report evaluates the impact of a partnership between the Building Strong Families program and the Child Support Division of the Texas Office of the Attorney General. Researchers evaluate the partnership in terms of child support outcomes, including paternity establishment, child support orders, and child support payments.
For many years, immigrants have come to the United States for economic opportunities, religious and political freedom, and to make better lives for themselves and their families. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division reported that the United States has the largest number of international migrants of any country in the world. This Fact Sheet describes some of what is known about legal U.S. immigrants, including demographic information, marriage and divorce trends, and unique challenges immigrant couples face in maintaining their relationships. (…
This Fact Sheet highlights statistics on marriage, divorce and non-marital childbearing in Japan, China, and the Republic of Korea (a.k.a., South Korea) -- a collection of countries representing some of the breadth of Asia. There are six major Asian groups and they include Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino, Asian Indian, and Cambodian/Hmong/Laotian. There are over 30 different countries and a variety of languages lending to the diversity of the Asian population. There is very little data on marriage and divorce in Eastern countries, however more data is to come given the…
Brief
This Brief aims to explore the various claims made about the commonalities and differences between the two fields of marriage and relationship education (MRE) and couples and marriage therapy (CMT), in the hope of bringing more clarity to the way these fields are represented and discussed. While acknowledging the many elements these fields have in common, fundamental philosophical and practical differences between them also need to be recognized as they have important implications for policymakers. (Author abstract modified)
