On September 30, 2025, the Administration for Children and Families announced over $100 million in Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood (HMRF) grants to 109 organizations across 38 states nationwide. This investment represents the Trump Administration’s commitment to fostering healthy marriages, stabilizing family structures, and helping fathers build better relationships and be more engaged parents — ultimately creating stronger families nationwide. 

HMRF grantees strengthen families nationwide through initiatives that promote responsible fatherhood, healthy marriages and relationships, and economic stability:

• FORGE Fatherhood (Family, Opportunity, Resilience, Grit, Engagement) grants provide comprehensive services that strengthen fathers’ parenting skills, foster positive father-child engagement, support healthy relationships, and improve economic stability—addressing the full spectrum of challenges fathers face.
• HEART (Helping Every Area of Relationships Thrive) grants support healthy marriage and relationship education, creating stronger foundations for children and families to thrive.
• READY4Life (Relationships, Education, Advancement, Development for Youth for Life) grants prepare young people ages 14-24—including expectant and parenting youth—with relationship skills, parenting knowledge, and financial education that lay the foundation for lifelong family stability and successful adulthood.

The Institute for Research on Poverty and the Wisconsin Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board co-hosted a webinar in November 2025 to highlight the unique challenges and distinct barriers young fathers experience when participating in child and family services. This webinar explored their needs, including those parenting with a partner and those parenting as single fathers, and featured evidence-informed practices, policy approaches, and program models that support fathers in helping their families thrive.

While an effective intake assessment helps build an initial impression of each father’s individual situation and needs, fatherhood program staff also know ongoing one-on-one and group interaction is needed to fully understand him and see who he might become. Even then, it can be hard to accurately follow his progress through the program and ensure his needs are met in the best way possible. This National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse brief presents an overview of customer journey mapping, an evidence-based tool that helps program administrators and staff members reflect on a father’s journey through a program and make service adjustments based on the father’s perspective as he progresses through that program.

This National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse publication serves as a resource for program operators seeking information on available curricula designed for working with fathers. While not a comprehensive list, it provides an overview of curricula used by programs funded by the Office of Family Assistance within the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This op-ed written by Acting Assistant Secretary Andrew Gradison outlines that current welfare policies focused on unconditional cash transfers are failing to lift low-income families out of poverty. Instead, he advocates for a welfare model that emphasizes work incentives, family stability, personal responsibility, and reduced dependency on government aid.

The pilot is authorized under the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 and reflects the Administration’s commitment to reshaping welfare programs to encourage employment, personal responsibility, and strong, stable two-parent families. States were encouraged to propose alternative performance measures to the work participation rate that prioritize rapid employment outcomes, earnings progression, and reduced dependency on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, and other welfare. 

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services selected Arizona, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, and Virginia to participate in the redesigned TANF pilot. These states were chosen from a strong applicant pool to develop models and metrics other states can replicate to help families achieve self-sufficiency. In addition to concretely tracking employment and earnings, pilot states will pursue the following strategies to reduce dependency:

• Arizona will engage directly with employers that have vacancies for in-demand, well-paying positions to directly connect TANF participants with quality, sustainable employment.
• Iowa will improve referral coordination across services, enhance the quality of information available to TANF participants through financial literacy and decision-making tools, and build partnerships with employers to create employment and matched savings opportunities.
• Nebraska, in partnership with community organizations, colleges, and businesses, will develop personalized pathways for TANF participants to strengthen connections to local jobs. Pathways will include referrals to Nebraska’s TANF-funded Fatherhood and Healthy Marriage Initiative.
• Ohio will implement a personalized “well-being assessment” for TANF participants, which will include intensive case management services, financial literacy training, and support for counties to build community capacity.
• Virginia will establish Personalized Results Plans for TANF participants to build upon the success of the Career Pathway Pilot, which blends sector-based training, intensive case management, and employment engagement to support participants as they gain credentials in fields like health care and skilled trades.

The TANF pilot program officially launches on October 1, 2025.

This webpage highlights the announcement of the new vision, mission, values, priorities, and guiding principles for the Administration of Children and Families. The webpage outlines the values and offers resources that highlight exemplary practices for each.

Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education (HMRE) programs support families by offering a range of services for youth, couples, and adults to increase their knowledge of healthy relationships and strengthen skills such as communication and coparenting. More than 40 HMRE programs in the current Administration for Children and Families (ACF) grant cycle chose to conduct local evaluations, and although each evaluation is designed for a specific local program, the collective learning opportunity is much greater when programs use a common framework and consistent evaluation standards and approaches.

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation released this toolkit to help HMRE programs and their evaluators adopt a common approach to designing and conducting evaluations to strengthen learning and support improved outcomes. This practical resource elevates local evaluations across the HMRE portfolio and supports a unified body of evidence to inform future program design and support improved outcomes. The toolkit supports alignment, enabling ACF, program leaders, evaluators, and other interested parties to better synthesize findings across cohorts and funding cycles and make meaningful progress on helping families in a variety of circumstances.

The Administration for Children and Families (ACF) has published these four Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) to support fathers, strengthen families, and empower youth across the nation.

• Family, Opportunity, Resilience, Grit, Engagement – Fatherhood (FORGE Fatherhood): ACF announced its plan to solicit applications for the competitive award of grants that support "activities to promote responsible fatherhood" under each of the three broad categories of promoting or sustaining marriage, responsible parenting, and economic stability activities authorized under Section 403(a)(2) of the Social Security Act. This funding will be targeted exclusively at projects designed for adult fathers, defined as fathers that are age 18 and older. Eligible fathers (or father figures) must have children who are age 24 or younger. Fathers will include those in the general population (or "community fathers"), as well as fathers who are returning, or have returned, to their families and communities, following incarceration. 

   

• Helping Every Area of Relationships Thrive - Adults (HEART): ACF announced its plan to solicit applications for the competitive award of grants that support "healthy marriage promotion" activities as authorized under Section 403(a)(2) of the Social Security Act. This funding will be targeted exclusively to projects designed for adult individuals or adult couples, defined as persons who are age 18 and older. Applicants will be asked to submit proposals that are designed to implement programs that include a broad array of service provision strategies. These include curriculum-based skills development and services designed to support family strengthening activities through one or more of seven activities specified under the authorizing legislation: marriage and relationship education/skills (MRES); pre-marital education; marriage enhancement; divorce reduction activities; marriage mentoring; public advertising campaigns; and activities to reduce the disincentives to marriage. 

   

• Relationships, Education, Advancement, and Development for Youth for Life (READY4Life): ACF announced its plan to solicit applications for the competitive award of grants that support healthy marriage and relationship education activities including parenting, and job and career advancement activities as authorized under Section 403(a)(2) of the Social Security Act. The Relationships, Education, Advancement, and Development for Youth for Life (READY4Life) grants will be targeted exclusively to projects designed to provide healthy marriage and relationship education skills, parenting (for young fathers and mothers as applicable), financial management, job and career advancement, and other activities, to youth that are high-school aged (grades 9-12) or in late adolescence and early adulthood (ages 14 to 24), including parenting and/or pregnant youth. Grants awarded will support family formation and healthy marriage promotion activities under the authorizing legislation, through marriage and relationship education/skills (MRES). Applicants must provide evidence of organizational capacity to implement their proposed project for the specified community.

   

• Grants for Coordination of Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Child Welfare Services to Tribal Families at Risk of Child Abuse or Neglect: ACF announced the availability of funds under the Grants for Coordination of Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and Child Welfare Services to Tribal Families at Risk of Child Abuse or Neglect. The purpose of this program, as prescribed by the statute (section 403(a)(2) of the Social Security Act, as amended), is "to fund demonstration projects designed to test the effectiveness of tribal governments or tribal consortia in coordinating the provision to tribal families at risk of child abuse and neglect of child welfare services and services under tribal programs funded under this part." 42 U.S.C. 603(a)(2)(B)(i). The award must be utilized for one or more purposes that are specifically outlined by statutorily-prescribed uses: (1) To improve case management for families eligible for assistance from a Tribal TANF program; (2) For supportive services and assistance to tribal children in out-of-home placements and the tribal families caring for such children, including families who adopt such children; (3) For prevention services and assistance to tribal families at risk of child abuse and neglect. In recent cohorts, recipients have engaged in activities such as revising intake and assessment procedures, developing informed consent documents that will allow staff to share information across program lines, providing cross-training for TANF and child welfare staff, developing joint case management procedures, and developing information technology systems to enhance coordination. Successful awardees will be required to articulate the methodology employed, as well as the anticipated deliverables and impacts. As this constitutes a pilot award, recipients are expected to disseminate key insights to the wider Tribal TANF and child welfare community.

   

All applications must be submitted electronically by Tuesday, July 29, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. ET. 

The “Success Sequence” is a proven formula to help young adults succeed in America. The three steps are

1. get at least a high school degree; then
2. get a full-time job; and lastly,
3. get married before having children.

Research shows that 97% of young people who follow all three steps are not poor as adults. This Institute for Family Studies webpage explores the three steps of the “Success Sequence” and explains how it alleviates poverty among young adults.