New Govt. Study: What Works in Marriage and Relationship Education?

Quite a lot. This new study by Theodora Ooms and Alan Hawkins, for the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center, focuses on programs for low-income couples. And it has a lot of good news. (I love the new term and its abbreviation, "MRE". They were both  my idea, a couple years back. Or maybe several of us had the same idea. I argued for the term because it puts marriage first, but then embraces other kinds of relationships.) Anyhow, it is both a short, readable introduction for those who are not very familiar with the field, and a comprehensive update on programs' implementation, adaptation, and results.

Because the report focuses on low-income participants in government-funded programs, its findings are more preliminary than the more long-term, existing body of research on other MRE programs with similar content and methods (which it also explains very well). It concludes that there is

"modest, early evidence that low-income couples—despite the
array of social, economic, and relationship challenges
they face—will participate in well-designed marriage
and relationship education programs when they are
offered, will enjoy the educational experience, and will
report that the program is helpful."

However, this conclusion becomes much more significant, providing the missing piece of an almost-finished puzzle, when you combine that with what we already know about the short and long-term effects of MRE in the general population.

Also, the report points out that when they say "modest", they use it as a technical term, usually meaning a 20% to 40% improvement in comparison to control groups. It notes that this is the same amount of improvement delivered by other, long-established kinds of educational programs serving lower income populations. And likewise, that the quality and quantity of studies on MRE programs is as good as that of other kinds of programs. To illustrate what they mean by modest and moderate:

"... couples assigned to take the Army
PREP program had a divorce rate that was one third
that of control-group couples. While statistically
this was a moderate effect size, in real-life
terms this indicates a potentially large and
meaningful difference."

The report also suggests other new approaches: integrating relationship education into many other human services programs, into secondary school curricula, and into the marriage licensing system.

When the Bush administration first proposed a national-level investment in marriage education -- continuing little-known Clinton administration-backed state-level efforts that were a key poverty-prevention component of welfare reform -- some "experts" who were unfamiliar with marriage ed., but were reporters' go-to authorities on domestic policy, said that "we don't know if these programs work", or words to that effect. That was widely repeated for years, but it was only true about new government-backed marriage-ed programs for the poor -- NOT about marriage education generally. But now we can finally lay that mantra to rest . Now we know.

Comments

[collaborative lawyer]

relationship education is undoubtedly a great thing- the trouble can often be getting one(or both) partners to agree to it. We do a lot of mediation and collaborative law and in some cases the couple in question will seek further relationship advice/edu and end up staying together.

[Cheryl Gowin]

Premarital and relationship training can help in building a strong marriage. I also think that divorce training should be required with the goal of helping both parties understand what the stress of a broken family or blended family will be.

[dui lawyer nevada]

Marriage is sometimes like a roller coaster with up and down periods. It's not suppose to be a life long commitment to frustration, disappointment, pain and suffering.

[Steve Gehloff, Marriage Counselor]

I love the idea of integrating relationship education into human services programs, and hope it gets more traction.

[oakland dui law firm]

Anything worth committing your life to will require work as well as a passion to succeed. Just like secondary education, a career or even a hobby, you will always be faced with new challenges and opportunities to learn and grow.