This report describes the major research investments of our Division of Family Strengthening through Fiscal Year 2015. This division has primary responsibility for research and evaluation projects related to strengthening relationships within families, supporting fatherhood, nurturing children through their families, reducing teen pregnancy, supporting youth in their transition to adulthood, and preventing family violence.

This report presents the research organized into six different sections, showing the breadth of our family strengthening research. These sections include:

• Supporting Fatherhood
• Strengthening Relationships
• Nurturing Children Through Families
• Supporting Positive Youth Development And Reducing Teen Pregnancy
• Preventing Family Violence
• Other and Cross-Cutting Research (author abstract)

This brief provides a general overview of the two Healthy Marriage (HM) grantees involved in the Parents and Children Together Evaluation (PACT), provides participation rates in services, and documents how the two grantees integrated job and career advancement services for parenting couples into their programs. This brief uses data obtained through staff interviews and program observations during site visits; ongoing interactions with program leadership; and data from a management information system that programs use to record data on couples’ receipt of services. (author abstract)

Family living arrangements have shifted over time, and fewer children now reside with their fathers. This has led to an increasing focus on non-resident fathers’ support of and involvement with their children. This study uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to explore the connection between fathers’ financial support payments and their involvement in coparenting. Findings suggest that there is a reciprocal relationship between coparenting and the amount of fathers’ payments, with coparenting having a greater effect on payments than the effect that making payments has on coparenting.

This report from the Urban Institute provides early implementation findings from a study of six grantees that provide soon-to-be and recently-released fathers and their families with an array of activities and services in responsible fatherhood/parenting, healthy marriage/relationships, and economic stability. The goals of the programs are to help stabilize the fathers and their families, move the fathers toward self-sufficiency, and reduce recidivism. These OFA grantees began program operations in October 2011; this report covers program activity through May 2013. (author abstract)

This report describes the first year of activities of the 14 tribes and tribal organizations who in 2011 received demonstration grants from the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) for Coordination of Tribal TANF and Child Welfare Services to Tribal Families at Risk of Child Abuse or Neglect.  The overarching goal of the Study of Coordination of Tribal TANF and Child Welfare Services is to document the way in which the tribal grantees are creating and adapting culturally relevant and appropriate approaches, systems, and programs to increase coordination and enhance service delivery to address child abuse and neglect.

Low-income families such as those who qualify for TANF are generally at greater risk for child maltreatment than other families. Since many families are involved with both the welfare (TANF) and child welfare (CW) systems, TANF and CW agencies are ideal partners to coordinate efforts to provide services that can address family risk factors, as TANF is intended not only to encourage parents to improve their socio-economic status, but also to provide stable homes. The funded projects were expected to focus on one or more of the following services: (1) improved case management for families eligible for assistance from a Tribal TANF program; (2) supportive services and assistance to tribal children in out-of-home placements and the tribal families caring for such children, including adoptive families; and (3) prevention services and assistance to tribal families at risk of child abuse and neglect. (author abstract)

This report is a technical supplement to The Community Healthy Marriage Initiative Evaluation: Impacts of a Community Approach to Strengthening Families. It provides additional detail about the research design and analytic methods that were used in the impact analyses and additional supplemental analyses that explore other aspects of the demonstration. (author abstract)

This report describes the implementation and impacts of selected programs funded through grants awarded to a number of organizations to conduct large-scale, community-wide projects that used “various methods to support healthy marriages community-wide” (Community Healthy Marriage [CHM] Grants to Implement Multiple Allowable Activities: Level 3; Healthy Marriage Demonstration Grants. Funding Opportunity Announcement 2006). The projects were to implement simultaneously five or more of the eight allowable activities specified in the authorizing legislation, reach a broad audience, involve stakeholders from diverse community sectors (e.g., government, schools, faith-based organizations, businesses, health care providers), and offer voluntary, healthy marriage and relationship education services to reach as many interested participants as possible. Impacts, at the community level, on a range of family-life outcomes were measured utilizing a representative sample of adults in matched treatment and comparison communities. (author abstract)

This report is a technical supplement to the 36-month impact report for the Building Strong Families (BSF) evaluation (Wood et al. 2012). It provides additional detail about the research design, analytic methods, and variable construction that were used for the 36-month analysis, as well as a discussion of the subgroup analysis that was conducted. Additionally, the report discusses the treatment-on-the-treated (TOT) impact analysis, an analysis of BSF’s effects on couples who actually attended BSF group sessions. The full set of impact results generated as part of the 36-month analysis is included in the appendices of this volume. Restricted use data files and documentation are available through the Inter-University Consortium of Political and Social Research. (author abstract)