Participation Patterns in Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education Programs: Lessons from Three Programs

Healthy marriage and relationship education (HMRE) programs aim to support the well-being of families. For such programs to be effective, it is critical that clients attend regularly, yet studies have found that HMRE program providers sometimes struggle to maintain high rates of participation. Identifying and exploring typical participation patterns in HMRE programming can help us better understand this challenge and point to ways in which programs can promote and support regular participation.

This study investigates participation patterns in three HMRE programs that were included in the Strengthening Relationships and Marriage Services (STREAMS) evaluation: (1) MotherWise, which served pregnant and new mothers in Denver, Colorado; (2) Career STREAMS, which served young adults seeking job training and employment services in St. Louis, Missouri; and (3) Empowering Families, which served couples with low incomes raising children together in Fort Worth, Texas. These three programs represent a range of HMRE program services and populations and offer opportunities to develop deeper insights into participation patterns in HMRE programs.

This brief describes typical patterns of participation in three programs that were part of the STREAMS evaluation. It identifies distinct patterns of participation in each of these programs and provides profiles of the clients who participate in these distinct ways. Earlier evaluation reports provided detailed information on the programs' design and implementation and described the programs' impacts after one year. The findings in this brief are described in more detail in the full report on this topic (Dolfin et al. 2022).

• We examined clients' extent of participation in MotherWise's three key program components: (1) the core workshop, (2) case management, and (3) the optional couples' workshop. We found clients who were older and those in steady romantic relationships with their baby's father were more engaged in the program than others. Clients who participated more fully tended to have enrolled postpartum, whereas those with low participation were more likely to have enrolled during pregnancy.
• We examined clients' extent of participation in Career STREAMS's three key program components: (1) the two-week workshop, (2) one-on-one case management and job development, and (3) weekly one-hour booster sessions offered after the two-week workshop. We found full engagers were more likely than other clients to have worked recently, and they had fewer barriers to employment. Low engagers received the fewest program services. They also tended to be clients who were most in need of employment support.
• For Empowering Families clients, we examined participation in four program components: (1) the core workshop, (2) case management, (3) employment coaching, and (4) financial counseling. Spanish-speaking couples were more likely than English-speaking couples to fully engage with program services. Couples with more stable relationship and economic circumstances were also more likely to participate fully in Empowering Families services. In addition, couples who were married, had children with no other partners, and had higher earnings had higher participation rates.
• A consistent pattern across the three programs is that clients in more stable circumstances were more likely to engage fully with program services. This pattern suggests that programs might need to make special efforts to engage clients in less stable circumstances.
• In the two programs that served substantial proportions of both English- and Spanish-speaking clients-MotherWise and Empowering Families-Spanish-speaking clients had higher rates of participation in all program components. This suggests that Spanish-speaking clients might be particularly receptive to HMRE services and that, with appropriate investments, HMRE programs can successfully engage Spanish speakers.

To understand typical patterns of participation and who participates in these ways, we used a statistical method called cluster analysis to identify groups of people with similar patterns of participation across each program's key components. We identified three groups of clients in each program defined by the extent of their participation in the program (full engagers, moderate engagers, and low engagers). We examined these participation patterns and the characteristics of the clients in each group to better understand their backgrounds and how they made use of program services. Data on measures of participation and client characteristics came from the Information, Family Outcomes, Reporting, and Management (nFORM) information system used by federal HMRE grantees and a baseline survey collected before program participation as part of the STREAMS impact evaluation.

Sarah Dolfin, Robert G. Wood, and Joanne Lee. "Participation Patterns in Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education Programs: Lessons from Three Programs." OPRE report #2022-312. Washington DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2022.