While students attending alternative schools are often at higher risk for teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, there has not been much research conducted on teen pregnancy prevention programs implemented at alternative schools. This Mathematica report, funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Family & Youth Services Bureau aims to fill that research gap. Mathematica conducted a rigorous evaluation of the Teen Choice prevention curriculum in alternative schools in the New York City area. This report covers the implementation of that curriculum. The programs suffered from low attendance rates, but the students who did attend were engaged and willing to participate in group discussions. Program staff liked the flexibility of the Teen Choice curriculum and the mutual aid approach that encourages facilitators to build trust with participants.

This Brooking Institution report describes how local communities have invested in better outcomes for children and youth. The authors start by describing benchmarks of success from early childhood to adulthood, such as developing reading and math skills, learning how to behave appropriately, graduating from high school, and reaching middle class. Next, they discuss the intergovernmental funding challenges associated with improving youth outcomes. The authors conclude with three qualities present in communities who have made improvements in youth outcomes, based on conversations with city, county, and state leaders. Those qualities are a willingness and ability to devote more local funding to youth services, a commitment to cross-sector collaboration, and attention to accountability, transparency, and evaluations. The report also includes successful program examples from cities and tips for taking the first step toward improving youth outcomes.

Families living in emergency shelters may experience instability, such as parents becoming separated from their children or partners. This Abt Associates report, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation details these family transitions. Using data from 2,282 homeless families who participated in the Family Options Study, the researchers found that about 30 percent of families living in shelters reported separation from at least one family member. Even 20 months after leaving a shelter, 24% of families reported that at least one of their children was not living with them. The researchers recommend that emergency shelters should consider whether their current policies allow families to stay together in shelters, and to realize that families are dynamic and their needs may change over time.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation developed this report to study the impact of couples-based family strengthening services for incarcerated fathers and their families. The Office of Family Assistance funded 12 grantees to support healthy relationship programming for incarcerated fathers, their partners, and their families from 2006-2011, and this report focuses on the findings from four of those programs. Three out of four of the healthy relationship programs had weak and non-significant finds, but one program showed sustained positive effects on multiple relationship and parenting outcomes. The authors suggest that more robust and comprehensive interventions might be necessary for justice-involved families.

This MDRC brief describes three innovative approaches to low-income fathers from the Building Bridges and Bonds (B3) study. The B3 study is a partnership between six organizations that provide Responsible Fatherhood services, MDRC, and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation. The goal of this study is to identify services that can improve outcomes of fathers who participate in Responsible Fatherhood programs. Innovations highlighted in this brief include a cognitive behavioral workshop that builds skills for employment stability, an interactive approach to high-quality parenting, and an engagement and retention approach.

Mathematica Policy Research issued three new briefs to document lessons learned from implementing the Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), which educates youth on abstinence and contraception. These briefs are part of a multi-component evaluation on PREP that Mathematica is conducting for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. One brief focuses on a teen pregnancy prevention program in rural Kentucky, another details a boys-only teen pregnancy prevention program in Iowa, and the third brief examines how California, Maine, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina developed infrastructure to support PREP programming. Each brief includes findings on how PREP implementation differed at each site.

While low-income parents face challenges, many manage to raise children with socio-emotional competence. This policy report from the National Center for Children in Poverty describes what can be learned from these resilient parents, and analyzes programs and policies that promote parents’ and children’s resiliency. The authors find that policies such as increasing access to health and mental health care, providing training in evidence-based parenting skills, and strengthening key safety net programs all contribute to strengthening resiliency in both parents and children.

In this brief from the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, strategies used by Responsible Fatherhood reentry programs to enhance the fathers’ parenting skills are discussed, such as building knowledge of child development, increasing communication, and providing assistance with child support. Also included are recommendations for practitioners who offer responsible parenting services to reentry populations.

Young adults are more likely to avoid poverty if they follow a “success sequence” in this order: earning at least a high school diploma, working full-time, and getting married before having children. This blog post from the Administration for Children and Families describes a recent report from the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies about millennials following this success sequence. The researchers found that 95% of millennials who married first before having children were not poor, but 72% of millennials who had children before marrying were poor. Millennials were also more likely to make it into the middle or higher end of the income distribution by age 28-34 if they married before having children. The blog post also describes ACF programs that can prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancy and promote healthy marriages.