This Resource Guide was developed to support service providers in their work with parents, caregivers, and their children to prevent child abuse and neglect and promote child and family well-being. It was created by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Children’s Bureau, Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, its Child Welfare Information Gateway, and the FRIENDS National Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention. The resources featured represent the work of a broad-based partnership of national organizations, Federal partners, and parents committed to strengthening…
Strong, healthy families give their children the best chance at success in school and in life. The Family Goal-Setting Guide explores how strong partnerships can positively influence the goals families set in the Family Partnership Process. (Author abstract)
This report describes program design and implementation of two Healthy Marriage programs that are part of the Parents and Children Together evaluation: The Healthy Opportunities for Marriage Enrichment program from The El Paso Center for Children in El Paso, Texas; and the Supporting Healthy Relationships program from University Behavioral Associates in Bronx, New York. The report includes a focus on the job and career advancement services offered by the two grantees, and presents data on enrollment, initial participation, retention, and the amount of services couples received from July 2013…
In September 2006, the Administration for Children and Families' Office of Family Assistance (OFA) awarded grants to 226 organizations designed to promote healthy marriage and responsible fatherhood. This report summarizes the service models, activities, and preliminary outcomes of a select group of Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood grantees that were identified as part of OFA's "Promising Practices" initiative to document programs that show evidence of positive participant outcomes. The first section of the report provides profiles of the following Healthy Marriage grantees: the…
This report discusses findings from an evaluation of eight organizations that implemented the Building Strong Families (BSF) program, a program designed to teach relationship skills to unmarried, romantically-involved couples who were expecting or had recently had a baby. For the evaluation, over 5,000 interested couples were randomly assigned to either a BSF group that could participate in the program or a control group that could not. Data was collected on BSF's impacts on couples about 15 months after they applied for the program, focusing on the stability and quality of the couples'…
This report is a technical supplement to the 15-month impact report for the Building Strong Families (BSF) evaluation, a study that explored the effectiveness of providing services to improve the relationships of unmarried parents. It provides additional detail about the research design, analytic methods, and variable construction that were used for the 15-month analysis. Chapter 1 begins with an overview of the research design. It then describes BSF sample intake procedures, including eligibility determination and the random assignment process. The eight local BSF programs enrolled couples…
This report discusses the implementation of the Building Strong Families (BSF) program in eight organizations. The BSF project was launched in 2002 to develop, implement, and rigorously test voluntary interventions aimed at strengthening the families of unmarried couples with children. BSF programs were implemented by non-profit and public agencies at 12 locations in seven States, and enrolled more than 5,000 volunteer couples, who were randomly assigned by the BSF research team to an intervention or control group. The intervention featured up to 42 hours of multi-couple group sessions led…
This report provides detailed summaries of major research investments by OPRE's Division of Family Strengthening (DFS) along with brief overviews of past projects. The featured projects cover topics that include strengthening relationships within families, supporting fatherhood, nurturing children through their families, reducing teen pregnancy, and supporting youth in their transition to adulthood. The report also describes DFS's investments in activities to disseminate rigorous research on family strengthening topics to a diverse range of stakeholders including federal and state policy-…
Sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Building Strong Families (BSF) evaluation used a random assignment research design to test eight voluntary programs that offer relationship skills education and other support services to unwed couples who are expecting or have just had a baby. After three years, the study showed that BSF had no effect on the quality of couples' relationships and did not make them more likely to stay together or get married. (Author abstract)
Sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Building Strong Families (BSF) evaluation used a random assignment research design to test eight voluntary programs that offer relationship skills education and other support services to unwed couples who are expecting or have just had a baby. After three years, the study showed that BSF had no effect on the quality of couples' relationships and did not make them more likely to stay together or get married. (Author abstract)
