Testing Relationship Skills Education Services With a Robust Economic Security Component

NCT02902003 | Completed

• 1 other identifier: MPR-500098-TPC
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 1,758
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

The Parenting Center (TPC) offers the Empowering Families program, which integrates a relationship education curriculum (Family Wellness) into a comprehensive set of services that includes case management, employment services, and financial coaching. The evaluation will test the effectiveness of offering relationship skills education services with a robust economic security component to low-income couples raising children.

Conditions

Family Relations

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (11)

• Employed or taking steps to find a job

  a binary variable equal to 1 if a respondent was ever employed at any time during the first year after study enrollment or indicates that in the past year he/she has done any of the following: * Created or updated a resume * Looked for a job * Submitted a job application * Gone on a job interview

  1 year after random assignment

• Monthly earnings

  This continuous variable uses survey data and is based on average monthly earnings from all jobs in the first year following study enrollment. It will be analyzed separately for men and women.

  1 year after random assignment

• Family economic hardship scale

  This scale represents how many of six economic hardships the family experienced in the past year.

  1 year after random assignment

• Quality of co-parenting relationship

  This 10-item scale (α = 0.94) is the average level of agreement-from "strongly disagree" (= 1) to "strongly agree" (= 4)-with statements about the respondent's partner, constructed by averaging across partners' responses.

  1 year after random assignment

• Couple married to each other

  This is a binary variable equal to 1 if both partners report that they are married to each other

  1 year after random assignment

• Couple married or romantically involved

  This is a binary variable equal to 1 if both partners report that they are married to each other or in a romantic relationship with each other

  1 year after random assignment

• Support and affection

  This 12-item scale is the average level of agreement-from "strongly disagree" (= 1) to "strongly agree" (= 4)-with statements about the respondent's partner, constructed by averaging across partners' responses

  1 year after random assignment

• Avoidance of destructive conflict behaviors

  This eight-item scale (α = 0.92) is the average frequency-from "never" (= 1) to "often" (= 4)-that a respondent reports experiencing destructive conflict behaviors with his or her partner, constructed by averaging across partners' responses

  1 year after random assignment

• Constructive conflict behaviors

  This seven-item scale (α = 0.87) is the average frequency-from "never" (= 1) to "often" (= 4)-that a respondent reports experiencing constructive conflict behaviors with his or her partner, constructed by averaging across partners' responses

  1 year after random assignment

• Relationship commitment

  This continuous variable ranges from 0 to 10, with higher values indicating that both partners are more committed to their romantic relationship. The measure is the average across the two partners' responses.

  1 year after random assignment

• Relationship happiness

  This continuous variable ranges from 0 to 10, with higher values indicating that both partners report greater happiness with their romantic relationship. The measure is the average across the two partners' responses.

  1 year after random assignment

Study Arms (2)

Control

NO INTERVENTION

Not eligible for program services

Empowering Families

ACTIVE COMPARATOR

These couples will be eligible to participate in the "Empowering Families" program.

Behavioral: Empowering Families

Interventions

Empowering Families BEHAVIORAL

A program that integrates the healthy relationship curriculum, Family Wellness, into a comprehensive set of services that includes case management, employment services, and financial coaching. The program will have four core components: (1) 20 hours of core workshop sessions using the Family Wellness curriculum; (2) case management; (3) employment services; and (4) financial coaching. The core component of Empowering Families will be a 20-hour group workshop, organized into eight two-and-a-half-hour weekly sessions (Table 1). The main content of these sessions will be based on the Family Wellness relationship education curriculum which will be covered in six sessions. These six sessions will be led by two trained facilitators employed by The Parenting Center. The core workshops will be supplemented with two additional sessions on financial planning and employment topics that will designed to be useful to all participants, regardless of their level of financial and employment needs.

Empowering Families

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 18 Years+
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Age Groups: Adult (18-64), Older Adult (65+)

You may qualify if:

• age 18 or older
• report that they are in a committed relationship with their partner
• speak a language in which programming is being offered
• be interested in participating in a program that offers both relationship skills and economic stability services
• be available to participate in programming for the next six months;
• pass a domestic violence screen
• not have an open case with child protective services.
• at least one member of the couple must have a biological or adopted child who is under age 18 and lives with them at least half time.

You may not qualify if:

• Ineligible if do not meet any of the above.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.: lead

Study Sites (1)

The Parenting Center

Fort Worth, Texas, 76107, United States

Location

Study Officials

• Robert Wood, PhD

  Mathematica Policy Research

  STUDY DIRECTOR

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: September 12, 2016
• First Posted: September 15, 2016
• Study Start: September 1, 2016
• Primary Completion: December 1, 2018
• Study Completion: December 1, 2021
• Last Updated: April 22, 2022

Record last verified: 2022-04

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

US (1)