This issue brief is from the National Responsible Fatherhood Clearinghouse and provides an overview of “what works” in fatherhood programs. Researchers outline evaluation procedures for such programs, as only rigorous evaluations of programs can provide evidence of whether programs have the positive outcomes for families. This issue brief outlines ten lessons learned from evaluated fatherhood programs.

Offered at the OFA Entrance Conference for Healthy Marriage and Promoting Responsible Fatherhood Grantees, this presentation offers information on the use of logic models for healthy marriage programs. The presentation provides a basic understanding of logic modeling and how to build appropriate logic models for specific programs.

Mentoring programs can often provide positive youth development similar to the support a youth receives from caregivers. This issue brief, from the National Human Service Assembly, offers information on how greater family engagement in youth mentoring programs can lead to better outcomes for mentored youth and how mentoring principles be applied to help connect isolated families to resources and supports to achieve self-sufficiency.

The RAND Corporation authored this report on the effects of work-conditioned welfare programs on marriage or child well-being. By using a theoretical framework and past research in this area, authors find that welfare programs can increase family income, which will affect child outcomes.

The Brookings Institution authored this report on the economic mobility of families based on Census Bureau data. Authors matched family income from the 1960s to the income of their children in the late 1990s to early 2000s. While median family incomes have grown for black and white families, the income gap between black and white families still exists.

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania conducted this study on the recent trends on marriage stability in the United States. While recent data offers conflicting evidence, authors review data, and conclude that marital stability has increased among married couples since the mid-late 1970s.

The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation funded this report, which synthesizes and evaluates the literature on adolescent romantic relationships, with emphasis on how these relationships are precursors of adult marriages. The goal of the report is to provide a foundation for policies to promote healthy marriages through programs targeted to adolescents.

The number of children born to unmarried parents has been steadily increasing. In 2005, 37 percent of children were born to unmarried parents. Responding to these trends, the Federal government implemented the Healthy Marriage Initiative. This brief, from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, provides information on the relationship dynamics of unmarried couples who recently had a child, which is the target population form many healthy marriage programs.

From the Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, Princeton University, this Fragile Families Research Brief summarizes the results of papers that use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to estimate the effect of incarceration on the wages and employment for poor young fathers. Employment and stable wages can play an important role in helping ex-prisoners reenter into their communities and reduce recidivism into criminal behavior.

The Urban Institute conducted this evaluation of the Partners of Fragile Families (PFF) project. The PFF demonstration was funded from 2000 to 2003 by the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) and the Ford Foundation in nine states across the country. This report provides case study data from eight unmarried, low-income fathers who participated in the demonstration. Among the key outcomes, it was found that the men generally lacked a strong concept of the meaning of fatherhood.