STRENGTHENING RELATIONSHIP EDUCATION AND MARRIAGE SERVICES (STREAMS)

Mathematica Inc., Princeton NJ

Investigators

Abstract

Research indicates that children and their parents fare better on a range of outcomes when living in stable, low-conflict, two-parent families. The Office of Family Assistance (OFA) at the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) provides grants to fund healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs to strengthen and improve the quality of relationships by offering a range of services from relationship education for high school students to marriage and relationship skills building for adult couples. In order to identify and evaluate strategies for improving the delivery and effectiveness of HMRE programs, ACF has initiated the Strengthening Relationship Education and Marriage Services (STREAMS) project. STREAMS is a large multi-site random assignment impact evaluation of HMRE programs serving adults and youth that is designed to answer multiple practice-relevant questions. During its first year, the study will gather input from practitioners, program developers, and research experts about priority research questions and how the study can best contribute to the field. STREAMS will emphasize program improvement and answering questions of particular policy relevance. Research questions of potential interest include what program elements or implementation strategies are key to achieving outcomes and how program engagement can be improved. After refining the study research questions, the study team will identify and recruit up to six evaluation sites in which to conduct both an in-depth process study and rigorous random assignment impact evaluation of HMRE programs.