Introduction
Research Questions
- What are the impacts of integrating HMRE into an existing employment program on participants’ relationship skills, attitudes, and experiences?
- What are the impacts of integrating HMRE into an existing employment program on participants’ connection to the labor market, labor market success, and economic well-being?
Research shows a close connection between a person’s employment, relationship circumstances, and their family’s overall level of economic stability and independence. Recognizing these connections, the Office of Family Assistance within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has funded programs that offer both healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) and economic stability services.
Programs typically integrate these services by adding economic stability services to an existing HMRE program, yet research has found that one challenge to this approach is that people who sign up for relationship education programs often have different interests and needs when it comes to employment. As a result, studies show that participants in these programs often do not use the economic stability services offered.
There is little evidence on the alternative approach of adding HMRE to an existing employment training program, despite several potential benefits of this approach. By design, employment training programs serve people with similar employment-related interests and needs. In addition, integrating HMRE into employment training programs could reach people on a large scale by operating through the country’s established network of employment training programs.
Purpose
This report is the second in a series on the implementation and impacts of a novel program that sought to integrate HMRE into an employment training program for young adults. To develop and implement the program, Family and Workforce Centers of America (FWCA), a long-standing provider of employment training in St. Louis, Missouri, enhanced one of its traditional employment training programs to include lessons from a widely implemented relationship education curriculum, along with additional content on workplace relationship skills and personal finances. The integrated program—called Career STREAMS—offered (1) daily workshops for two weeks covering employment-related topics and information on HMRE; (2) five, one-hour booster sessions offered weekly following the two-week workshop; and (3) individualized case management and job development services.
This report documents the study methods, describes program costs and implementation, and presents program impacts after one year. The impacts were estimated by comparing the outcomes of participants who were randomly assigned to either a group that was offered Career STREAMS or a control group that was offered FWCA’s traditional employment training program. An earlier report provides detailed information on the program’s design and implementation. The study was conducted by Mathematica and Public Strategies as part of the Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services (STREAMS) evaluation for ACF.
Key Findings and Highlights
- The program succeeded in enrolling participants for whom both employment services and HMRE had relevance. Everyone entered the program expecting to receive employment services and nearly all participants reported having had at least one romantic relationship in the year before study enrollment.
- Compared with FWCA’s traditional employment training program, Career STREAMS did not change participants’ relationship skills, attitudes, or experiences after one year.
- Compared with FWCA’s traditional employment training program, Career STREAMS did not change participants’ connection to the labor market, earnings, and economic well-being after one year.
Methods
Between August 2016 through December 2018, 908 participants enrolled in the study. To be eligible for the study, participants had to be at least 18 years old and interested in enrolling in an employment training program. The study team randomly assigned participants to either: (1) a group that was offered participation in the Career STREAMS program or (2) a control group that was offered participation in FWCA’s traditional employment training program. For the impact analysis presented in this report, we used data from a baseline survey that was administered at the time of enrollment and a one-year follow-up survey. A total of 641 participants responded to the one-year follow-up survey, for a response rate of 71 percent. Response rates were similar between the program and control groups. To examine impacts on earnings, we also used administrative data from the National Directory of New Hires, a database of wage and employment information.
Recommendations
The results of this study highlight both advantages and challenges of integrating HMRE into an employment training program. Although the program enhancements did not have their intended positive impacts on participants’ relationship or employment outcomes, the program succeeded in reaching its intended population and developing a way to offer the intended mix of HMRE and employment content. In addition, we learned that enhancing FWCA’s traditional employment training program with HMRE content cost a relatively modest amount—about $3,000 dollars less per participant than what prior studies have reported for stand-alone HMRE programs. Some employment providers might feel unqualified to deliver HMRE or uncertain about how to introduce the topic to participants in an employment training program. We learned that providers can effectively address these concerns by focusing on commonalities between workplace relationships and romantic relationships, teaching common topics such as communication and conflict management skills, and developing a thoughtful plan for introducing and integrating HMRE topics.
However, finding ways to support regular program attendance and effectively meet the needs of job seekers can be challenging. Participants in Career STREAMS needed substantial supports to regularly attend the program sessions. About 20 percent of participants did not attend any of the two-week workshop sessions, and 38 percent did not attend any of the booster sessions. By design, employment training programs serve people at a time when they need help finding or keeping a job. This life circumstance might make it hard for participants to attend program sessions and meaningfully absorb the program content. Some minimum level of economic stability might be necessary before participants are ready to regularly attend program sessions, take stock of their relationships, and apply HMRE programming to their lives.
Future research could build on this study in several ways. Because we designed the study to compare Career STREAMS to FWCA’s traditional employment training program, we cannot say if Career STREAMS would have had impacts relative to a control group who were not offered an alternate program. Future studies could test the impacts of an integrated HMRE and employment training program relative to a “no service” or business-as-usual control group that is not offered an alternative program. Future research could also explore the implementation and impacts of programs that integrate HMRE with different types of employment services or training programs. For example, programs that offer a stipend for basic living expenses or that arrange a paid apprenticeship or short period of subsidized employment might enable participants to achieve a basic level of economic stability before receiving the HMRE content.
Citation
Goesling, Brian, Max Gross, and Julieta Lugo-Gil (2022). Integrating Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education into an Employment Training Program: The Impacts of Career STREAMS, OPRE Report #2022-162, Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.