
Incarceration and the Family: A Review of Research and Promising Approaches for Serving Fathers and Families
The number of individuals involved in the criminal justice system is at a historic high. There are almost 2.3 million individuals in U.S. jails and prisons and more than 798,000 people on parole. It is estimated that 7,476,500 children have a parent who is in prison, in jail or under correctional supervision.
Minority children are disproportion


Foundations for Strong Families 201. Conclusion
Family-focused services that build both relationship and financial skills have much promise. In this tumultuous economy, recognizing that couples with stable relationships accumulate greater levels of wealth over time and have the potential to better ride out the ebbs and flows of market changes, more and more service providers are keen to work wi


Foundations for Strong Families 201. Fostering Collaboration to Resolve Couples Financial Problems
Forgiveness is an important concept for couples who have financial problems. Couples need to talk over past mistakes, come to a level of forgiveness, and focus on going through every bill and financial statement to develop a viable financial strategy. This process takes time, trust, and commitment in relationships to move forward. The advice of ma


Foundations for Strong Families 201. Help With Child Support Payments
Research shows that child support is an important source of income for single parents, yet many low-income single parents, who are often mothers, receive inconsistent payments from non-custodial parents. 18 There are several reasons for the irregular payments that include: constraints on non-custodial parents’ ability to pay such as spells of u


National Evaluation of the Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage, and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Re-Entering Fathers and Their Partners: Program Models of MFS-IP Grantees
The research brief provides an overview of the program models used by the twelve Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Re-entering Partners grantees. [10 PDF pages]
rb.pdf


Addressing Domestic Violence in Family Strengthening Programs for Couples Affected by Incarceration
ASPE RESEARCH BRIEF
Abstract
rpt.pdf


What Challenges Are Boys Facing, and What Opportunities Exist to Address Those Challenges? Initial Findings Brief
July 2008
This Brief is available on the Internet at: http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/08/boys/Findings1/brief.shtml
Printer Friendly Version in PDF Format (22 pages)
Additional Resources
brief.pdf


Foundations for Strong Families 201
This is the second of two briefs that examine the interplay between education and skills-building programming for lower income individuals and families in the areas of marriage and relationships, financial literacy, and asset development. It explores how communication, marriage and divorce, money management, credit and debt, children and child s
report.pdf


Foundations for Strong Families 101. Conclusion
This brief was intended to demystify financial education and marriage and relationship skills education for educators who may be more familiar with one area than another. A second objective was to highlight the common ground between financial and marriage educators in terms of increasing family stability for low-income families. Specific practices


Foundations for Strong Families 101. Making the Case: Common Ground between the Marriage and Financial Fields
Research suggests that those that have healthy and stable relationships are more likely to have healthy stable finances and vice versa. Stability in one area seems to reinforce stability in the other, and familial and financial stability share a common foundation.


Foundations for Strong Families 101. What Do Marriage and Family Strengthening Programs Do?
Marriage and family-strengthening programs seek to develop participants’ relationship skills (e.g. communication, problem solving) in order to develop and sustain healthy relationships, marriages and families.


Foundations for Strong Families 101. Introduction
Family and finances are key sources of strength and self-sufficiency that interact in the lives of most Americans. However, many face ongoing problems and stress because of family and financial instability, especially in these uncertain times. Families in low-income communities may face greater difficulties in accessing resources to build strong f


Five Years Later: Final Implementation Lessons from the Evaluation of Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers and Their Partners. Endnotes
[1] All grantees were required to provide services to all eligible persons, regardless of a potential participant’s race, gender, age, disability, or religion.
[2] For more on target populations, see the ASPE Research Brief, Program Models of MFS-IP Grantees (McKay & Lindquist, December 2008) available at http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/08


Five Years Later: Final Implementation Lessons from the Evaluation of Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers and Their Partners. Implications for Program Designers and Curriculum Developers
Examining successes and failures among the array of program models and curricula implemented by MFS-IP grantees, several lessons emerge for designing future programs in this area:


Five Years Later: Final Implementation Lessons from the Evaluation of Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers and Their Partners. Whom Should Family Strengthening Programs Serve?
Some grantees felt that defining “family” more broadly when serving incarcerated fathers would help increase the impact of programming. They suggested that incarcerated men’s romantic and parenting relationship structures are often complex, and also that incarcerated men often draw on crucial support from a family member other than a rom


Five Years Later: Final Implementation Lessons from the Evaluation of Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers and Their Partners. What Services Should Family Strengthening Programs Offer—and When?
When asked what they had learned from program implementation, many grantees identified specific components that they wished they had included in their original MFS-IP program designs. These included fathers-only relationship or parenting classes and employment-related supports. Above all, program leaders stressed the importance of job placement


Five Years Later: Final Implementation Lessons from the Evaluation of Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers and Their Partners. Characteristics that Supported Program Continuation
All grantees, regardless of whether they had delivered family strengthening services to justice-involved families prior to the MFS-IP grants, expressed a strong commitment to continuing this work after OFA funding ended. As the grant period drew to a close, program leaders focused their sustainability efforts on federal grant-seeking, with some al


Five Years Later: Final Implementation Lessons from the Evaluation of Responsible Fatherhood, Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers and Their Partners. Building New Partnerships with Domestic Violence Agencies
Grantees partnered with statewide domestic violence and sexual assault coalitions, local domestic violence service agencies focused on providing services for victims and batterers, or both. Partnerships between MFS-IP grantees and their local domestic violence organizations often broke new ground, with domestic violence agency staff at several sit