This Heritage Foundation report analyzes data on important trends related to marriage, childbearing, divorce, cohabitation, and abortion, and offers insights on these trends. The report includes five key findings about family life in America today:

1. Americans are getting married less and later;
2. Fewer children are being born, but more are born outside marriage;
3. More couples are cohabiting;
4. Marriage and family are no longer priorities; and
5. American singles are faced with a “connection conundrum.”

This Institute for Family Studies report shows how closely the fortunes of Ohio families are tied to the educational success, poverty, and emotional well-being of children across the state, how strong families are tied to safer streets, how closely connected economic mobility for poor children is to the state of the unions in their communities across the state, and how falling fertility imperils the demographic future of the state. Given the importance of the family for children, adults, and the state, this report also identifies a series of public policies and civic measures the legislature, businesses, churches, and families can advance to renew the foundations of marriage and family across Ohio.

Given young adults’ high desire for marriage, understanding the truth of how loving and lasting marriages are formed can help the rising generation have confidence in their own ability to pursue this path in their own lives. Helping young people achieve their life goals of marriage is deeply important because a happy marriage is one of the best predictors of life satisfaction for men and women. This Institute for Family Studies report explores top attitudes and behaviors that were predictive of a high-quality and stable marriage from a recent survey of married men and women.

This Family and Youth Services tool helps Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention programs reflect on strategies for identifying and engaging community partners and supporting and sustaining these partnerships over time. Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention grantees can use this tool to discover effective methods for identifying suitable community partners; explore strategies for engaging and maintaining strong, productive relationships with these partners; explore best practices for providing ongoing support to community partners and recognize their contributions; learn how to address challenges in partnerships and sustain long-term collaboration; and use feedback from community partners to continuously improve program implementation.

To prevent pregnancy among adolescents, the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB) supports state, Tribal and community efforts to teach abstinence and contraceptive education. This FYSB webpage highlights their Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention program and its grant recipients, including Personal Responsibility Education Programs which educate young people on abstinence and support pregnant youth or mothers under the age of 21.

Adolescence is an ideal time to help youth develop healthy relationship skills that support their lifelong health and well-being. Healthy relationship skills, such as the ability to communicate and collaborate with others and manage conflict, have shown to promote social and emotional health, including perceptions of self-worth, goal achievement, and success in the workplace. This Child Trends brief describes the potential benefits of integrating Positive Youth Development, a developmental framework that focuses on youth’s assets and strengths, into healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programming to inform the work of HMRE program directors and administrators, as well as the efforts of educators, employers, and a range of youth-serving staff.

This National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse resource provides tips for fatherhood programs to:

1. Plan Strategically;
2. Develop and Maintain Solid Partnerships;
3. Document and Evaluate;
4. Tell Their Story;
5. Respond to Changing Social Contexts;
6. Develop Multiple Funding Sources; and
7. Lead Systems Change.

This National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse state profile examines the interaction between fathers and programs funded by the West Virginia Department of Human Services to support families, particularly the program services available through the TANF program.

This Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services webpage highlights faith and community partnerships, including services ranging from faith-focused counseling, family programming, faith-based programming, and more.

Over the past ten years, only a few states have invested TANF and TANF-related funds on healthy marriage and relationship-related services. This National Healthy Marriage Resource Center fact sheet outlines how TANF funds can be used to fund programs that develop and maintain healthy marriages/families. The fact sheet highlights economic and physical data that supports this public policy initiative and justifies the investment of public funds in healthy marriage activities.