COPARENTING AND HEALTHY MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP EDUCATION FOR DADS (CHARMED)

Child Trends, Inc., Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

Coparenting and Healthy Relationship and Marriage Education for Dads (CHaRMED) is a federal evaluation effort designed to: better understand how Responsible Fatherhood (RF) programs currently support healthy marriages/relationships and coparenting; examine how their approaches align with the needs of the fathers in their target populations; and inform the RF field about potential future directions in Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education (HMRE) and coparenting programming.In two parallel and related sets of activities (one set focused on HMRE and one on coparenting), information collected under CHaRMED will focus on the nature of fathers? relationships, review the services that RF programs currently provide to support healthy marriages/relationships and coparenting, solicit fathers? opinions about those services, identify gaps in services, and outline recommendations for addressing these gaps. A multi-method approach will be used for data collection, including secondary analysis of existing data; focus groups with fathers enrolled in RF programs and with fathers? coparents; and semi-structured interviews with program staff, program partners, curriculum developers, and fathers who have dropped out of RF programs.