Testing the Effectiveness of Integrating Relationship Education Into an Existing Workforce Readiness Program

NCT02829411 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: MPR-500098-FWCA
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 909
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The project will test the strategy of integrating 25 hours of relationship education into an existing employment program for low-income individuals ages 18-30. It will use a 2-arm randomized controlled trial to test the effect of this full package of services on participants' employment outcomes and relationship outcomes.

Conditions

Marriage; Family Relations

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (14)

• Perceived romantic relationship skills

  Six-item scale (α = 0.84) equal to the average level of agreement-from "strongly disagree" (= 1) to "strongly agree" (= 4)-with 6 statements.

  1 year after random assignment

• Perceived conflict management skills

  Five-item scale (α = 0.77) equal to the average self-assessment-from "I am bad at this" (= 1) to "I am extremely good at this" (= 4)-of 5 skills.

  1 year after random assignment

• Support for going slow in romantic relationships

  Single-item scale equal to the level of agreement-from "strongly disagree" (= 1) to "strongly agree" (= 4)-with the following statement: "People are more likely to succeed in their relationships if they take things slowly."

  1 year after random assignment

• Disapproval of couple violence

  Five-item scale (α = 0.77) equal to the average level of disagreement-from "strongly agree" (= 1) to "strongly disagree" (= 4)-with 5 statements.

  1 year after random assignment

• Any exposure to psychological abuse

  Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent indicates that a romantic partner has done any of the following in the past year: * Try to keep you from seeing or talking with your friends * Make you feel stupid * Keep money from you or take your money without asking * Made you feel afraid that they might hurt you

  1 year after random assignment

• Any exposure to physical abuse

  Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent indicates that a romantic partner has done any of the following in the past year: * Push, shove, or slap you * Punch or kick you or beat you up

  1 year after random assignment

• Any perpetration of physical abuse

  Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent indicates that they did any of the following to a romantic partner in the past year: * Pushed, shoved, or slapped them * Punched, kicked, or beat them up

  1 year after random assignment

• Involved in an unsteady relationship

  Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent reports being involved in an on-again/off-again relationship at the time of the follow-up survey and equal to 0 if the respondent reports being married, engaged, romantically involved on a steady basis, or not in a romantic relationship at the time of the follow-up survey.

  1 year after random assignment

• Had an unintended pregnancy

  Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent reports that they had been/gotten someone pregnant since study enrollment and that they did not want to be/get someone pregnant or the pregnancy came sooner than intended.

  1 year after random assignment

• Employed or training to improve job prospects

  Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent was employed, participating in a job training program, or enrolled in school at the time of the follow-up survey.

  1 year after random assignment

• Monthly earnings, administrative records

  Continuous variable constructed from NDNH data that is created by summing quarterly earnings across the four quarters following random assignment and dividing by 12.

  1 year after random assignment

• Monthly earnings, survey report

  Continuous variable constructed from survey data that is based on average monthly earnings from all jobs in the first year following study enrollment.

  1 year after random assignment

• Better off financially now

  Binary variable equal to 1 if the respondent feels better off financially now than a year ago.

  1 year after random assignment

• Economic hardship

  Continuous variable that represents how many of the following six economic hardships the respondent experienced since study enrollment

  1 year after random assignment

Study Arms (2)

Employment Services only

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

'Workforce Readiness Program'. job readiness workshop, organized into ten daily sessions over two weeks. The main content of these sessions will be a program-developed workforce readiness training, developed with funding from a DOL Career Pathways Bridge grant.

Behavioral: Workforce Readiness Program

Employment Services with HMRE content

EXPERIMENTAL

'Workforce Readiness Program supplemented with Relationship Education': job readiness workshop, organized into ten daily sessions over two weeks. Program will add approximately 17 hours of content from the Within My Reach relationship education curriculum to the two-week job readiness workshop - and add up to eight additional one-hour relationship skills education sessions that customers can attend in the five weeks after completing the initial two-week job readiness workshop

Behavioral: Workforce Readiness Program; Behavioral: Relationship education

Interventions

Workforce Readiness Program BEHAVIORAL

job readiness workshops, organized into ten daily sessions over two weeks.

Employment Services only; Employment Services with HMRE content

Relationship education BEHAVIORAL

25-hours of "Within My Reach" curriculum and relationship skills education sessions

Employment Services with HMRE content

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years - 30 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64)

You may qualify if:

• disconnected from workforce

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.: lead
• Department of Health and Human Services: collaborator

Study Sites (1)

FWCA

St Louis, Missouri, 63133, United States

Location

Study Officials

• Brian Goesling, PhD

  Mathematica Policy Research

  PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: TREATMENT
• Intervention Model: PARALLEL
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: SPONSOR

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: July 8, 2016
• First Posted: July 12, 2016
• Study Start: August 1, 2016
• Primary Completion: December 1, 2018
• Study Completion: December 1, 2020
• Last Updated: April 5, 2021

Record last verified: 2021-03

Locations

US (1)