Overview
The Building Strong Families (BSF) project is an evaluation study assessing the effectiveness of interventions targeting low-income unwed parents at or near the birth of their child. Programs and services focus on the provision of healthy marriage education services, i.e. skills and knowledge for unwed parents who desire to marry to enter into and sustain healthy marriages, improve relationships and family functioning, and increase child and family well-being. Evaluators are working with State and local officials implementing the BSF model in seven sites. The evaluation includes process/implementation analyses and impact analyses based on the random assignment of couples to research groups.
The major research questions addressed in this study include: (1) What are the issues and challenges in designing, implementing and operating programs to increase permanence and healthy marriages and thereby improve child well-being and family functioning among low-income unwed parents? (2) What are the characteristics of couples targeted by programs? (3) What are the net impacts on the attitudes and expectations of low-income parents regarding marriage? (4) What are the net impacts on rate of marriage and stability and on quality of relationships among parents? (5) What are the net impacts on measures of child well-being (e.g., cognitive, social, emotional, health) and parental well-being (e.g., emotional, health, economic)? (6) What program designs have the greatest impact on outcomes? (7) Do program effects vary for couples/families with different characteristics?
The project period is 9/28/02–12/31/11 and the points of contact are Nancye Campbell and Seth Chamberlain. Ask a Question.