Resource Library

A key element of the Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF’s) strategy for implementing the…

The Strengthening the Implementation of Marriage and Relationship Programs (SIMR) project aims to identify key implementation challenges facing healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs and, in close collaboration with HMRE programs and their staff, test potential solutions to those challenges using rapid-learning techniques.

Children who are supported emotionally and financially by their fathers tend to fare better than those without such support. Despite wanting to be strong parents, providers, and partners, many fathers struggle to fulfill these roles. Recognizing both the importance of fathers and the challenges that they face, Congress has authorized and funded grants for fatherhood programs for more than a decade. The Office of Family Assistance (OFA), which is in the...

This brief provides information to help fatherhood practitioners better understand what referrals are appropriate for participants who have used or survived domestic violence (DV). It provides background information to help distinguish between the key features of DV agencies, battering intervention programs (BIPs), and anger management programs...

Teen dating violence is widespread and linked to a host of negative short- and long-term outcomes for youth. Youth are rarely offered an explicit opportunity to disclose these experiences to a trusted adult or told where they can get help if they need it. 

High school—based healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs, funded by the Office of Family Assistance (OFA) in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services...

This brief describes how low-income fathers participating in Responsible Fatherhood (RF) programs perceive and provide financial support for their children. It combines quantitative and qualitative information collected on fathers as part of the Parents and Children Together (PACT) evaluation, a multi-component evaluation of RF programs for low-income fathers funded by grants awarded by Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This brief is intended to support both researchers and father-serving professionals in their efforts to study, evaluate, and implement practices for use in fatherhood programs to help prevent and address domestic violence...

Although research shows adult participants in HMRE programs enjoy participating and find them worthwhile, programs often face challenges recruiting participants and reaching enrollment targets. Programs conducting evaluations that require random assignment and data collection can face additional challenges (for example, increasing recruitment to account for random assignment of some applicants to a comparison group). Recruitment challenges are not unique to HMRE programs...

Healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs for couples with children aim to strengthen couples’ relationships and ultimately improve the well-being of participants’ children. Although these programs have shown some success in improving outcomes for married couples, their success with unmarried couples has been limited.

Efforts to support and promote responsible fatherhood have increased in recent decades, spurred by research that shows a link between supportive fathering and positive child outcomes. The Strengthening Families Evidence Review (SFER) identified and reviewed studies of family strengthening programs. This catalog contains summaries of studies that describe and analyze responsible fatherhood programs for fathers with low income.