Resource Library

Fostering Trust with Program Participants and Serving LGBTQ+ Youth: Highlights from the Third FRAMING Research Technical Work Group on Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education

This brief offers lessons for healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) program providers seeking to integrate HMRE and economic stability services.

Read about the adaptation of an online training for parents and caregivers of youth in foster care on adolescent sexual health topics.

Suggestions from previous research on how to measure child wellbeing in healthy marriage and relationship education and responsible fatherhood programs.

Explore strengths-based approaches used in the REFRAME project which aims to center and support Black families in Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood programs.

This fact sheet summarizes Sexual Risk Avoidance Education (SRAE) grant recipients’ experiences related to their work environments, communication, technology use, staffing, implementation, and data collection as they navigated the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs aim to support the well-being of families. For such programs to be effective, it is critical that clients attend regularly, yet studies have found that HMRE program providers sometimes struggle to maintain high rates of participation. Identifying and exploring typical participation patterns in HMRE programming can help us better understand this challenge and point to ways in which programs can promote and support regular participation.

This study investigates participation patterns in three HMRE programs that were included in the Strengthening Relationships and Marriage Services (STREAMS) evaluation: (1) MotherWise, which served pregnant and new mothers in Denver, Colorado; (2) Career STREAMS, which served young adults seeking job training and employment services in St. Louis, Missouri; and (3) Empowering Families, which served couples with low incomes raising children together in Fort Worth, Texas. These three programs represent a range of HMRE program services and populations and offer opportunities to develop deeper insights into participation patterns in HMRE programs.

Healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs aim to support the well-being of families by teaching them skills to improve communication and conflict management, how to recognize the characteristics of healthy romantic relationships, and how to strengthen existing relationships. HMRE programs may pair a relationship skills curriculum with other services, such as individualized job development or instruction on financial planning, that aim to promote economic stability or content on parenting skills.

Understanding the relationships of unmarried adult couples is central to understanding contemporary family life in the United States. As a growing share of adults in the United States are postponing or foregoing marriage, marriage rates have declined and the percentage of adults in unmarried and cohabiting relationships has increased. Unmarried relationships can range from fragile on-again, off-again relationships to highly committed relationships that resemble marriage. This report examines survey data collected from a diverse sample of 356 unmarried adults about their breakups with a romantic partner.

In recent years, many healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs serving couples with low incomes have offered participants economic stability services in addition to traditional HMRE programming focused on relationship skills. To add to the research literature on the effects of this approach, the Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services (STREAMS) evaluation included an impact study of Empowering Families, an HMRE program with integrated economic stability services for couples with low incomes raising children together.