Family Support Policy Research

Reports

• "Advancing the Self-Sufficiency and Well-Being of At-Risk Youth: A Conceptual Framework." Robin Dion, M.C. Bradley, Andrew Gothro, Maura Bardos, Jiffy Lansing, Matthew Stagner, and Amy Dworsky, March 2013.This report presents a conceptual framework for efforts to prepare at-risk youth for healthy adult functioning and self-sufficiency. Produced as part of the Youth Demonstration Development project for the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, the framework explains how we can build our knowledge about what works for at-risk youth, by implementing and testing research-informed interventions to promote youth’s resilience and human capital.
• "Evaluation of Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Approaches: Design of the Impact Study." Kimberly Smith and Silvie Colman, October 2012. This report describes the impact study component of the Evaluation of Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention Approaches (PPA), which aims to expand available evidence on effective ways to prevent and reduce pregnancy and related sexual risk behaviors among teens in the United States. It includes the policy context and goals of the evaluation, the selection and key features of the program models and sites included in the evaluation, the impact study designs in each site, and the approach to estimating impacts and reporting results.
• "Making a Plan and Sticking to It: Implementing an Enhanced Version of HealthTeacher in Chicago." Rachel Shapiro and Ellen Kisker, September 2012. This report presents findings from a study of the implementation of an enhanced version of HealthTeacher, an online health education curriculum, in Chicago Public Schools in 2011. Teachers of 7th-grade students implemented the family health and sexuality module of HealthTeacher in nine schools. The study found that, despite some challenges, the curriculum was a good fit for Chicago Public Schools and was implemented with high fidelity.
• "The Long-Term Effects of Building Strong Families: A Relationship Skills Education Program for Unmarried Parents." The Building Strong Families Project. Robert G. Wood, Quinn Moore, Andrew Clarkwest, Alexandra Killewald, and Shannon Monahan, November 2012. Sponsored by the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Building Strong Families (BSF) evaluation used a random assignment research design to test eight voluntary programs that offer relationship skills education and other support services to unwed couples who are expecting or have just had a baby. After three years, the study showed that BSF had no effect on the quality of couples' relationships and did not make them more likely to stay together or get married. Technical Supplement. Executive Summary.
• "Synthesis of Research and Resources to Support At-Risk Youth." Heather Koball, Robin Dion, Andrew Gothro, Maura Bardos, Amy Dworsky, Jiffy Lansing, Matthew Stagner, Danijela Korom-Djakovic, Carla Herrera, and Alice Elizabeth Manning, June 2011. This report for the Youth Demonstration Development Project highlights what is known broadly about the needs, circumstances, and outcomes for at-risk youth; theoretical perspectives and intervention approaches to serve them, including risk/resilience and capital development frameworks; and the Administration for Children and Families' programs that serve at-risk youth. The report also discusses implications of the research for the development of a conceptual framework for serving at-risk youth.
• "Laws Requiring Parental Involvement to Obtain Abortion and Prevalence of Sexually Transmitted Infections Among Minors." Silvie Colman, Ted Joyce, and Thomas S. Dee, May 2011. Report evaluates whether policies requiring parental involvement in minors' decision to obtain an abortion can alter their sexual behavior and help reduce the rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among teens. Using data from the STI surveillance system of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on cases of gonorrhea and chlamydia, the findings offer little evidence of a link between parental involvement laws and teen STI rates.

Journal Articles

• "The Dynamics of Women Disconnected from Employment and Welfare." Quinn Moore, Robert G. Wood, and Anu Rangarajan. Social Service Review, March 2012. This study examines the circumstances of women disconnected from employment and welfare using a sample of New Jersey TANF recipients followed for five years. It uses discrete-time hazard models to analyze transitions into and out of disconnectedness. The results indicate that having a more extensive work history and greater human capital lower the risk of becoming disconnected. Conversely, individuals relying on unemployment insurance benefits are at high risk of becoming disconnected when their benefits end. In addition, receipt of sanctions for noncompliance with TANF’s work requirements are found to triple the risk of becoming disconnected. Finally, transitions into disconnectedness increase sharply with increases in the unemployment rate.
• "The Effects of Building Strong Families: A Healthy Marriage and Relationship Skills Education Program for Unmarried Parents." Robert G. Wood, Sheena McConnell, Quinn Moore, Andrew Clarkwest, and JoAnn Hsueh. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, February 2012 (subscription required). This article examines the impacts of Building Strong Families, a healthy marriage and relationship skills education program serving unmarried parents who were expecting or had recently had a baby. Results varied across sites, with one site having a pattern of positive effects (but no effect on marriage) and another having numerous negative effects. However, when impacts are averaged across all sites, findings indicate that the program had no overall effects on couples' relationship quality or the likelihood that they remained together or got married.
• "Evaluation Exemplar: The Critical Importance of Stakeholder Relations in a National, Experimental Abstinence Education Evaluation." Paul R. Brandon, Nick L. Smith, Christopher Trenholm, and Barbara Devaney. American Journal of Evaluation, December 2010 (subscription required).This piece describes Mathematica’s abstinence education evaluation, provides interviews with the evaluation’s two lead authors (Trenholm and Devaney), and offers reflections on the study.
• "Changes in Capacity Among Local Coordinated Community Response Coalitions (CCRs) Supported by the DELTA Program." Pamela J. Cox, Daniel M. Finkelstein, Victoria E. Perez, and Margo L. Rosenbach. Journal of Family Social Work, July 2010 (subscription required). Using survey data collected from coordinated community responses (CCRs), which are community coalitions funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Domestic Violence Prevention Enhancements and Leadership Through Alliances (DELTA) Program, this article reports on improvements in internal capacity and external supports that affect ability to prevent intimate partner violence.
• "What Predicts Sex Partners' Age Differences Among African American Youth? A Longitudinal Study from Adolescence to Young Adulthood." José A. Bauermeister, Marc A. Zimmerman, Cleopatra H. Caldwell, Yange Xue, and Gilbert C. Gee. Journal of Sex Research, July 2010 (subscription required). Using growth curve modeling, this study describes the shape of the age difference between participants and their sex partners across adolescence and young adulthood in a sample of African American youth, by evaluating the co-occurrence of other risk behaviors.
• "Relationship Education for Unmarried Couples with Children: Parental Responses to the Building Strong Families Project." Robin Dion and Alan Hershey. Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy, April 2010. An implementation study of the Building Strong Families (BSF) programs indicates that many unmarried couples are interested in services to strengthen their relationships around the time of their child’s birth. More than 5,000 couples volunteered for the BSF study across eight states. Although couples report learning from and valuing the program, they also have many life challenges, and practitioners must be proactive in supporting ongoing participation. Results from a rigorous evaluation of the program’s impacts on family outcomes are forthcoming.
• "What Do We Know About the Link Between Marriage and Health?” Heather Koball, Emily Moiduddin, Jamila Henderson, Brian Goesling, and Melanie Besculides. Journal of Family Issues (web edition), March 2010. This special journal issue presents nine new studies on the relationship between marriage and health among African Americans. It discusses health disparities between African Americans and other racial and ethnic groups, offers an overview of African American marriage rates, and presents evidence for the marriage-health link in this population.

Issue Briefs

• "Connecting At-Risk Youth to Promising Occupations." Issue Brief. M.C. Bradley, Jiffy Lansing, and Matthew Stagner, January 2013. This brief provides information for programs and organizations that serve at-risk youth transitioning to adulthood. Part of the Administration for Children and Families’ Youth Demonstration Development issue brief series, it explores occupations in health care and construction that hold promise for a quick path to employment without extensive up-front education or training.
• "Integrating Family Support Services into Schools: Lessons from the Elev8 Initiative." Issue Brief. Angela Valdovinos D'Angelo, Lauren Rich, and Jaclyn Kwiatt, January 2013. As part of a national initiative called Elev8, Atlantic Philanthropies provided funds to community organizations to work with five Chicago schools to provide a wide range of programs and economic services to families. A multi-year evaluation of the initiative found a small group of parents who used the economic support services felt that they helped improve their family’s financial well-being. However, difficulties coordinating efforts between schools and community organizations as well as parents’ concerns about sharing their private information within the school setting limited the program’s integration into the schools and parent participation in the services offered.
• "The Economic Well-Being of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Youth Transitioning Out of Foster Care." Issue Brief. Amy Dworsky, January 2013. The brief describes the characteristics and economic well-being of young people aging out of foster care who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB). It also compares their economic self-sufficiency with that of their heterosexual peers also aging out of care. The analysis uses data from the Midwest Study of Adult Functioning of Former Foster Youth, a longitudinal study that followed a sample of young people from Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin as they transitioned out of foster care and into adulthood.
• "Do Laws Requiring Parental Involvement to Obtain an Abortion Help Reduce STIs Among Minors?" Issue Brief. Silvie Colman, Ted Joyce, and Thomas Dee, June 2011. This issue brief evaluates whether policies requiring parental involvement in minors' decision to obtain an abortion can alter their sexual behavior and help reduce the rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among teens. Using data from the STI surveillance system of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on cases of gonorrhea and chlamydia, the findings offer little evidence of a link between parental involvement laws and teen STI rates. 
• "Exploring the Role of Partners and Spouses in the Decisions of Social Service Clients." Trends in Service Delivery, Issue Brief #1. M. Robin Dion, December 2010. This brief focuses on the role of partners and spouses in the decision-making processes of social service clients. Using survey data, direct observation of couple interaction, and physiological measurement, findings suggest that the decisions of individuals receiving public assistance—married or unmarried—are affected by their partners. If confirmed by future research, these results have implications for the delivery, content, and outcome measurement of social services for low-income families.
• “Fostering Effective Grassroots Partnerships: Lessons from Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.” Pam Winston, March 2010. A new issue brief highlights themes and recommendations from recent Mathematica studies of faith-based and community initiatives. The Faith-Based and Community Initiative established in 2001 and the Charitable Choice provisions of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act brought new attention and controversy to the role of faith-based organizations in providing social services to Americans. The brief explores how social service organizations and faith-based and secular groups might work together moving forward.

Other

• "Economic Integration of Latino Immigrants in New and Traditional Rural Destinations in the United States." Randy Capps, Heather Koball, and William Kandel. In Growing Up Hispanic, Nancy S. Landale, Susan McHale, and Alan Booth, editors, 2010. This book chapter focuses on the integration of Latino immigrants in rural areas of the United States, a research area under-studied compared to urban integration.
• "Promising Antipoverty Strategies for Families." Maria Cancian, Daniel R. Meyer, and Deborah Reed, April 2010. This paper reviews family structure, its relationship to employment, and the recession’s impact on poor families. To reduce poverty, the report proposes policies that help parents balance work and caretaking, and support their children.
• “Family Structure, Childbearing, and Parental Employment: Implications for the Level and Trend in Poverty.” Maria Cancian and Deborah Reed. In Changing Poverty, Changing Policies, September 2009. Poverty declined significantly in the decade after the War on Poverty, yet the official poverty rate has never fallen below its 1973 level and remains higher than the rates in many other advanced economies. The authors document how economic, social, demographic, and public policy changes since the early 1970s have altered who is poor and where antipoverty initiatives have kept pace or fallen behind, examining how family structure changes in particular have affected poverty. They note the importance of efforts to support parents’ employment.
• "The Marriage Measures Guide of State-Level Statistics." Brian Goesling, Robert G. Wood, Carol Razafindrakoto, and Jamila Henderson, March 2008. In the past decade, policymakers and researchers have become increasingly interested in social programs that promote and support healthy marriages. Drawing on data from several sources, the guide provides a broad range of state-level statistical information that policymakers and marriage program operators can use to assess the characteristics and needs of their state populations. The guide can be used to identify high-priority target populations and to inform decisions about design and implementation of healthy marriage programs.
• "Federal Policy Efforts to Improve Outcomes Among Disadvantaged Families by Supporting Marriage and Family Stability." M. Robin Dion and Alan J. Hawkins. In Handbook of Families and Poverty, October 2007. There is broad consensus that family structure is inextricably linked with poverty and the well-being of children. This paper reviews the connections between poverty, family structure, and child well-being; explains the rationale for a new policy strategy focused on intervening more directly at the level of family structure, and describes several major federal initiatives under way to develop and test the new strategies.
• "Welfare-to-Work Transitions for Parents of Infants: Employment and Child-Care Policy Implementation in Eight Communities." Christine Ross and Gretchen Kirby. In From Welfare to Child Care: What Happens to Young Children When Mothers Exchange Welfare for Work, 2006. Nearly half the states have used the flexibility provided under federal welfare reform law to require parents of infants to work as a condition of receiving benefits, and nearly all states require teenage parents to return to school soon after the birth of a child. Mathematica's implementation study examined the policy environment (work and school requirements) and practical considerations (child-care and supportive services) that influence the timing and ease of the transition from welfare to work or school for parents of infants. The study was based on staff interviews and focus groups with key informants in eight communities. Researchers found that case managers and program administrators did not view parents of infants as a group that had categorical needs substantially different from those of the broader TANF population and that TANF policies regarding work requirements, sanctions, and time limits were applied in the same way. In contrast, teenage parents were viewed as a subgroup with special needs requiring comprehensive services and support.