Inside BSF
This 10-minute video shows couples participating in an actual BSF group session as one couple tells its story. A narrator provides context, including the purpose of marriage education programs, who participates, and topics the programs cover. The video was designed as an outreach tool to illustrate how BSF works and to describe the program to eligible couples, as well as a resource to inform or engage the interest of potential program funders or community partners.
Altering this video without permission is prohibited. However, broadcast, copying, and public performance are permitted provided that the following attribution is noted:
“This video was produced by the Relationship Research Institute, through subcontract with Mathematica Policy Research, under contract with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. The information and opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the positions of the Department of Health and Human Services or the Administration for Children and Families.”
To view the video, click here. To download the video, click here. To download a transcript of the video, click here. |
Publications
Strengthening Unmarried Parents’ Relationships: The Early Impacts of Building Strong Families: Executive Summary
This executive summary details the key findings of Strengthening Unmarried Parents’ Relationships: The Early Impacts of Building Strong Families.
Download the report in PDF format
Strengthening Unmarried Parents’ Relationships: The Early Impacts of Building Strong Families
This report provides impacts of BSF on couples about 15 months after they applied for the program. Early impacts show that, when results are averaged across the eight individual programs included in the evaluation, BSF did not achieve its primary objective of improving the stability and quality of the couples’ relationships. Results varied across the eight programs with positive effects for one program and negative effects for another. Other programs had little or no effects on relationships. BSF had overall positive effects for African American couples—improving the quality of their relationships.
Download the report in PDF format
Strengthening Unmarried Parents’ Relationships: The Early Impacts of Building Strong Families: Technical Supplement
This report is a technical supplement to the 15-month impact report for the BSF evaluation. It provides additional detail about the research design, analytic methods, variable construction used for the 15-month analysis, and a discussion of the subgroup analysis. It also includes additional impact results not presented in the main report.
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The Building Strong Families Project: Implementation of Eight Programs to Strengthen Unmarried Parent Families
This report documents the design and implementation of the eight BSF programs, reports on services received by couples enrolled in the program, analyzes characteristics of couples and programs that may affect participation, and describes the experiences of program group couples.
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Implementation of the Building Strong Families Program
This report highlights key findings from an implementation analysis of BSF’s program sites in Atlanta, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Florida, three counties in Indiana, Oklahoma City, and Houston and San Angelo, Texas during the evaluation's first 6 to 14 months. The analysis documents recruitment and enrollment practices, describes the characteristics of enrolled couples, provides data on program participation, and summarizes the experiences of couples participating in the intervention. Individuals who enrolled in the program were typically in their mid-20s and often had children from prior relationships. Although most had a high school education, earnings and income were low. More than half the recruited sample members were African American, about one-quarter were Hispanic, and about 14 percent were non-Hispanic white. The average couple had known each other for several years, were cohabiting, and had high hopes for marrying their partner.
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Implementing Healthy Marriage Programs: Early Lessons
This report documents early lessons from pilot demonstration sites in Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Oklahoma, and Texas from early 2005 to early 2006. The report shows that unwed parents in the program are interested in programs such as BSF that will help them build the necessary skills to form and sustain healthy relationships. It also indicates that, overall, couples responded positively to the programs and valued the group format and learning from other couples' experiences.
Download the report in PDF format
Healthy Marriage Programs: Learning What Works
Public and private interest in programs to strengthen couples' relationships and reduce the number of children growing up without both parents is growing. The central policy question is whether effectively implemented programs can increase the number of children, especially in disadvantaged populations, who are raised by both parents in healthy and stable relationships, ideally marital. The author describes such programs; discusses the main challenges and opportunities in implementing them in low-income populations; and explains how researchers, policymakers, and practitioners are beginning to learn whether they work.
Download the article in PDF format
Guidelines for Developing BSF Programs
These guidelines can help interested sponsors design and deliver program services. They detail the three program components of the BSF programs: instruction in skills associated with healthy marriage, family support services, and family coordinators.
Download
the guidelines in PDF format
Lessons from Family Connections in Alabama
Family Connections in Alabama (FCA), a 12-month project conducted in 2003, aimed to design, implement, and evaluate a program to provide family life education to low-income unmarried parents of young children. This report describes and develops lessons learned from FCA that are relevant for designing and implementing programs to serve low-income unmarried couples having children—the population served by BSF programs. Implementation lessons identified include issues relating to staffing, service delivery format, recruitment and retention, and curriculum use.
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Strengthening Families: A Framework for Interventions
This report presents a conceptual framework for designing,
implementing, and testing interventions for low-income unmarried parents
interested in strengthening their relationships and possibly forming and
sustaining healthy marriages. It builds on research showing that the period
around a child's birth is a critical moment for strengthening couple bonds.
Download the full report
in PDF format
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Issue Briefs
Characteristics of Fragile Families: Implications for BSF Programs
This brief summarizes information from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study about the characteristics and relationships of unwed parents. The findings can help state and local agencies and other groups interested in programs like BSF gain a better understanding of their target population and develop interventions that respond to their needs and circumstances.
Download the brief in PDF format
Strengthening Relationships and Supporting Healthy Marriage
The first publication in the BSF issue brief series focuses
on program design aspects of the conceptual framework for interventions
with unmarried parents to help them strengthen their relationships and, if they so choose,
form and sustain healthy marriages.
Download the brief
in PDF format |
Strengthening and stabilizing the relationships of low-income couples has emerged as a focus of national policy development and testing. If unmarried parents can be helped to fulfill their aspirations for stable, healthy lives together, there could be important benefits for child well-being. Building Strong Families (BSF) is an initiative to develop and evaluate programs designed to help interested unwed parents achieve those goals. This website is designed to document the progress of the BSF project, the services being tested, and the results of the evaluation. For a description of the Building
Strong Families project,