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Project Description

The Building Strong Families (BSF) project aims to learn whether well-designed interventions can help couples fulfill their aspirations for a healthy marriage and a strong family. The project will test interventions with low-income, unwed couples beginning around the time of their child’s birth. The programs will be designed to help such couples strengthen their relationship, achieve a healthy marriage if that is the path they choose, and thus enhance child and family well-being. Programs will be designed around two main components. First, the programs will provide instruction and support to improve marriage and relationship skills and enhance couples’ understanding of marriage. In addition, programs will provide a variety of services that could help low-income couples sustain a healthy relationship. These services might, for example, help to improve parenting skills or address problems with employment, health and mental health, or substance abuse. Some initiatives might supplement these main components with policy changes to improve incentives or reduce disincentives to marry.

The BSF project will address the following key questions:

• Foundation: What underlying conditions, preparation, resources, and context make it possible to implement programs that focus on promoting healthy marriage for a target population of low-income unwed couples with children? On what theories of behavior and family well-being do the programs rest? What types of organizations are well suited to operating such programs?
• Operation: What are the important issues and challenges in designing, implementing, and operating programs, and what lessons can be drawn from the program experience? What services are included, and how do they complement existing programs for low-income families?
• Participation: Who participates and for how long, and what services do they receive? How does participation differ for subgroups?
• Impacts: How do BSF programs affect couples’ attitudes and expectations about marriage, the quality and stability of their relationships, and whether they marry? What effects are found on parents and their relationships with their children, and the well-being and development of children? Which program designs work best?

Project duration: Oct 2002 - Jan 2011

Sites studied include site selection in progress

Sample Characteristics and Sites Studied

not reported

Recent Findings in Brief

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