HMRF Newsletter Issue 11 

In This Issue: 

• Three New Reports and a Synthesis Brief with the Final Results from the Building Bridges and Bonds (B3) Evaluation

• Toolkit for Implementing New Program Components or Services in Fatherhood Programs  

• Two Impact Reports Published from Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services (STREAMS) Evaluation
• Final Reports on the 2015-2020 Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Grantee Cohort from the Fatherhood and Marriage Local Evaluation (FaMLE) and Cross-Site Project

• Highlights from the Second Meetings of the FRAMING Research Project’s Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Technical Work Groups

The Building Bridges and Bonds (B3) study released impact findings on the three interventions tested: the Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Justice Involved Individuals Seeking Employment (CBI-Emp) study which tested the effects on fathers’ employment, criminal justice system involvement, and relationships with coparents; the Just Beginning study which tested the effects on father-child relationships; and the DadTime study which explored the feasibility, usability, and impact of a smartphone app to promote fathers’ attendance in a parenting intervention. Three separate reports describe the implementation, impact, and cost findings for each intervention tested. A syntheis brief summarizes the lessons across the three studies.

For more information, contact Katie Pahigiannis.

PROGRAM TIPS 

The DadTime study adds to a growing field of research on the use of technology to promote engagement in services. The report includes important insights for programs interested in designing and implementing a smartphone app to promote father engagement. Key tips include:

• Determine the purpose and role of the app
• Integrate the app into existing programs and processes
• Ask research questions that can identify critical features or content for app interventions and that are matched to outcomes

PROGRAM TIPS 

The CBI-Emp and Just Beginning curricula tested in B3 built on emerging innovations and evidence in the fatherhood field about what fathers may want and need from community-based programs. Below are cross-cutting lessons from the B3 tests of CBI-Emp and Just Beginning:

• The implementation of new curricula did not reduce fathers’ participation in other services, suggesting that organizations can implement new services without reducing participation in other program services.
• To engage and retain fathers in new services, it is important to thoroughly understand and meet their essential needs, remove barriers to participation, and engage them in services quickly after enrollment.
• When implementing new curricula, organizations should reserve resources for ongoing staff training and technical assistance.
• Since not all interventions are appropriate and effective for all fathers, consider strategies for reaching the intervention’s ideal target population in the context of the existing programs’ settings.

For more practitioner-oriented resources from the B3 project, please visit the B3 project’s webpage.

A new toolkit from the Building Bridges and Bonds (B3) evaluation provides fatherhood program practitioners with user-friendly, hands-on resources to support implementation of new program components or services within existing fatherhood programs. The resources include a set of downloadable tools along with an interactive web-based brief and a longer resource document to support use of the tools.

For more information, contact Katie Pahigiannis.                 

PROGRAM TIPS 

This toolkit describes and provides specific resources to support three key phases of adding new program components into existing services:

• Ready guides programs through steps to prepare for program changes
• Set helps programs create a foundation and put things in place for successful implementation
• Go aids programs in implementation and continual learning

Explore two impact reports from the Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services (STREAMS): the one-year impact findings of MotherWise, a healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) program designed to serve expectant and new mothers with low incomes in Denver, Colorado and the one-year impact findings from the Empowering Families healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) program, which integrated economic stability services with HMRE content for couples with low incomes raising children together. In addition to describing the programs’ impacts after one year, the reports also provide information on program implementation and costs and document the study methods.

For more information, contact Samantha Illangasekare.

PROGRAM TIPS 

Considerations for programs working with pregnant or parenting mothers:

• Relationship outcomes may take longer than one year post-enrollment to unfold, and these may be harder constructs to target at the individual level
• Serving mothers during particular life points such as during pregnancy or just after child birth may make them more receptive to learning about healthy relationships

Considerations for programs working with adult couples:

• Programs should consider integrating relationship education and financial literacy into the core HMRE programming couples jointly receive
• Lowering economic stress may make it easier for couples to absorb and apply relationship education information received from the program
• Teaching couples how to better communicate with one another may result in couples being better able to jointly manage their finances and reduce family’s economic hardships

Explore four new reports from the Fatherhood and Marriage Local Evaluation (FaMLE) and Cross-Site Project that present final results of the analysis of the 2015 cohort of Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood grantees using nFORM data. Separate reports summarize findings for healthy marriage grantees serving adults, healthy marriage grantees serving youth, and responsible fatherhood grantees, along with an overarching technical appendix which includes supplementary findings. The reports address how grantees reached potential clients, the services they provided, how they supported staff, the challenges they faced in implementing their programs, the characteristics of the clients they served, and how clients changed from the beginning to the end of the program.

For more information, contact Katie Pahigiannis or Pooja Curtin.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE 

In a recent community forum, members of the FaMLE and Cross-Site Project team showcased the results from the final cross-site analysis of nFORM data from the 2015 HMRF grantee cohort. Research and program experts discussed the findings and their implications for HMRF programs and the field more broadly. The recording and presentation slides can be found here.

Explore highlights from OPRE's second FRAMING Research Technical Workgroup (TWG) convenings, which brought together research and practice experts to discuss healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) and responsible fatherhood (RF) programming, research, and evaluation. The HMRE TWG report summarizes their discussion of the challenges of implementing HMRE programs for youth and individual adults, building the evidence base for the effectiveness of these programs, and five top priorities they identified for future work. The RF TWG report summarizes their discussion of implementation and impacts of programs designed to improve the economic stability of fathers with a history of criminal justice involvement, barriers these fathers face in trying to be involved fathers, and ways programs can help fathers overcome these barriers. The RF TWG also identified four top priorities for future work.

For more information, contact Kriti Jain or Samantha Illangasekare.          

The purpose of this newsletter is to connect with researchers, curriculum developers, practitioners, service providers, and other community partners or collaborators to share knowledge about Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) research and evaluation.

This newsletter adds to the sources of information that exist on HMRF programs, services, curricula, and practices by specifically focusing on research and evaluation conducted by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) in conjunction with the Office of Family Assistance (OFA), both within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

For more information about OPRE’s HMRF research and evaluation portfolio, please contact Katie.Pahigiannis@acf.hhs.gov.