About Healthy Marriage & Responsible Fatherhood

Current as of:

Our Approach

The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) competitively awards HMRF grants to states, local governments, tribal entities, and community-based organizations (both for profit and not-for-profit, including faith-based). These grantees work to help participants build and sustain healthy relationships and marriages, and to strengthen positive father-child interaction.

Our Programs

The HMRF programs are part of ACF’s strategy to improve the long-term well-being of children and families. OFA currently funds 111 grants across a network of 98 organizations in 30 states under three Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs):

  • Projects funded under the Family, Relationship, and Marriage Education (FRAMEWorks) FOA provide services that combine marriage and relationship education with efforts to address participation barriers and the economic stability needs of adult participants (age 18 and older).
  • Projects funded under the Fatherhood Family-focused, Interconnected, Resilient, and Essential (Fatherhood FIRE) FOA funds projects that integrate robust economic stability services, healthy marriage education, and activities designed to foster responsible parenting for adult fathers (age 18 and older). Fatherhood FIRE projects also serve fathers who are within nine months of release from incarceration and who intend to return to their communities and families.
  • Projects funded under the Relationships, Education, Advancement, and Development for Youth for Life (READY4Life) FOA provide a broad array of healthy marriage promotion services designed to support healthy relationships and marriage, including the value of marriage in future family formation and skills-based healthy relationship and marriage education to youth in high school (grades 9-12), high-school-aged youth (ages 14-17), and/or youth in late adolescence to early adulthood (ages 18-24).

Our Learning Agenda

ACF is continuing to implement a learning agenda that focuses on expanding the knowledge base to continue improving programming and increase positive outcomes for individuals, couples, families, and children. The learning agenda activities will also provide valuable information to grantees on performance and outcomes that will facilitate continuous quality improvement.

Our Grantees

HMRF programs are funded under a 5-year project period (2020 — 2025). Currently, there are 30 FRAMEWorks grantees, 57 Fatherhood FIRE grantees, and 24 READY4Life grantees.

FY 2020 Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Grantee (PDF)s (PDF)

Program Memoranda

Equal Program Access in Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Programs (2008)

Equal Program Access in Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Programs (2007)

Faith-Based Legal Safeguards

Curricula Use and Compliance with 45 CFR Part 87