Evidence of public and private interest in programs designed to strengthen the institution of marriage and reduce the number of children growing up without both their parents is growing. Robin Dion addresses the question of whether such programs can be effective, especially among disadvantaged...

This paper was prepared for Vision 2004: What Is the Future of Marriage?, a special volume published by the National Council on Family Relations in February 2004. The paper describes three studies related to the Building Strong Families (BSF) project designed to address whether interventions to...

An implementation study of the Building Strong Families (BSF) programs indicates that many unmarried couples are interested in services to strengthen their relationships around the time of their child’s birth. More than 5,000 couples volunteered for the BSF study across eight states....

Family Connections in Alabama (FCA), a 12-month project conducted in 2003, aimed to design, implement, and evaluate a program to provide family life education to low-income unmarried parents of young children. This report describes and develops lessons learned from FCA that are relevant for...

Reviews and synthesizes what is known about the drop in Medicaid and food stamp participation, as well as the reasons for the decline and potential strategies for increasing participation. The report finds evidence of barriers to access and participation, some predating welfare reform and some...

To pursue the mission of changing the culture of marriage and divorce, OMI leaders engaged the support of grassroots volunteers in communities across the state. By the end of 2007, more than 120,000 people had participated in marriage education workshops. Overall, workshop and large-scale events...

This issue brief, the first in a series from our Building Strong Families project, focuses on program design. The brief is based on a conceptual framework that identifies factors to consider in developing programs and services to strengthen relationships in unmarried parent families. The...

This paper was prepared for <I>Vision 2004: What Is the Future of Marriage?</I>, a special volume published by the National Council on Family Relations in February 2004. The paper describes three studies related to the Building Strong Families (BSF) project designed to address whether interventions to...</i>

This review provides summaries of impact, implementation, and descriptive studies that have examined responsible fatherhood and related family strengthening programs that target and serve low-income fathers.