Strong Staffing and Partnering Approaches in Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood Programs

Since 2006, the Office of Family Assistance (OFA), within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has awarded and overseen federal funding for four cohorts of healthy marriage (HM) and responsible fatherhood (RF) grant programs (2006-2011, 2011-2015, 2015-2020, and 2020-2025). The HM grantees promote HM and relationships through eight legislatively authorized activities, such as marriage and relationship education and development of skills for job and career advancement. RF grantees’ legislatively authorized activities promote responsible parenting, healthy marriage, and economic stability. OFA works with ACF’s Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation (OPRE) to conduct research on how to best serve families through these grants.

To learn more about factors that might help or hinder successful implementation of the 2015-2020 cohort of grants, ACF asked Mathematica to visit selected grantees to explore their experiences. This brief shares some of what was learned, with a focus on approaches to staffing programs and working with partners.

This work was part of the Fatherhood and Marriage Local Evaluation (FaMLE) Cross-Site Project, led by OPRE in collaboration with OFA. ACF partnered with Mathematica to conduct the FaMLE Cross-Site project.